Traditionally, we respect the Constitution, but when frustrated, overcompensate in our disappointment and elect liberals. We were so satisfied and successful with Ronald Reagan, we let our guard down and let his VP, George H. W. Bush move up a notch. Bad decision. Our disappointment in the elder Bush resulted in Bill Clinton’s election. The Junior Bush’s two-time failure has resulted in the most wicked political swing ever.

As politicians go, Obama is probably as honest as any of them. Certainly, he’s a better man than the likes of Christopher Dodd or Barney Frank, or the horrifying Tom Daschle. I think he’ll find that if he plays honestly, he’ll find much more stalwart friends in Republicans like Richard Lugar than the morally and politically corrupt hacks like those mentioned above. Keep them close, Mr. President, because ultimately, they are your (and the American people’s) enemy.

I had hoped that Obama would shock us all and call Ron Paul to the White House and ask for help with the economy. But no, his political machine is intoxicated with painting him as a modern day FDR, not because Roosevelt saved us from economic ruin, but because many people today think he did. The truth of the matter is, FDR’s programs deepened and extended the Great Depression, and then goaded the Japanese into attacking us and drawing us into World War II. FDR killed many times the number of people George W. Bush did. WWII ended the Great Depression, at the cost of over 400,000 American lives.

As Obama follows the path of FDR, massive government spending for infrastructure, then war, what will the total be? Last time, the biggest weapon that could be used against us was a 1,000 pound dumb bomb dropped from an airplane. This time? Nuclear or  biological agents capable of killing hundreds of thousands could be deployed by single combatants.

What this means.

The route we’re taking shows no sign of changing. Over a Trillion dollars have been pumped into the black hole of this economic meltdown, to no effect. Every single dollar printed and injected into the system will eventually show up in the form of inflation. The $825 Billion stimulus package the new President is pushing will pump another huge glob of currency into that black hole. Notice, that I said “currency” instead of “money.” The paper our Government is printing isn’t money, it’s claim against that wealth, making each note or credit in a bank account, worth less.

WCN.net isn’t investment advice, and you shouldn’t use it as such, but I’m happy to share my plans and strategies with my readers. I’m continuing to invest in metals (Gold, Silver), and stock up on food and water.

Things are not getting better. They will continue to get worse. Protect yourself and your family.

To those who voted against Obama:

Get over it. I’m one of you, as once again, I had to hold my nose and cast my ballot. Four years ago, it was for John Kerry, who I didn’t agree with politically, but knew we needed to change course for both geopolitical and economic reasons. I was right. It’s all the more frustrating for me and those who believe as I do, because this year, we had Ron Paul, until the Media and Republican Party marginalized Dr. Paul, the only candidate who showed he knew “his fanny from first base” as my father would say.

I understand if you want to bolt for the exits, I’m considering how best to do the same thing, but it has nothing to do with our pick for President. It’s economic, and there’s very little that President Obama will be able to do about it, except make it worse, and create for us a longer period of suffering. That, I fully expect. To those rabid opponents, you definitely need to get over it.

By all means, do what you can to get his birth certificate and make sure he hasn’t knowingly misrepresented his constitutional qualifications to be President, but I do not believe he is Muslim, a foreign agent or the Anti-Christ. At the worst, I believe he is an aggressive, ambitious politician, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. When he talks, assume what he says about “service” is more “acquistion of power.” I believe his lack of a track record (all those “present” votes) were more about his using his office not to serve his constituents, but instead his political ambitions, than it was about his being a mysterious servant of Islamic terrorists, a new Socialist/Communist/Fascist “strongman” or anything else the breathless conspiracy theorists hint at. Again, Republicans, get over it and start rebuilding the Party.

To those who voted for Obama:

Calm down.

Smoke a cigarette (even if you’re a non-smoker). He’s not the messiah. The world is not going to magically change on January 19th, and the higher and more you euphorically embellish just how awesome life will be when the Bush family moves out of the White House, the quicker and more massive the backlash will be when you realize you will still have to get up in the morning, go to work, do what your boss says, pay your bills and worry about pretty much the same things you had to worry about before. I especially pity the person, and there will be many of them, who focused their life over the past year, on getting Obama elected, but will find themself getting laid off next week, next month, or early in January. That story will be told many, many times.

George W. Bush didn’t, by any stretch of the imagination, help the economic situation we’re in. But he didn’t create it, either. No one person did. The biggest share of the blame goes to a Congress who, not understanding the economics of what was happening, did nothing to rein in those who were playing fast and loose with the rules to take incredibly dangerous long-term risks (to all of our financial futures) in the hopes of fabulous short-term profits. I have to admit a little pity for Obama, too. Why he and McCain wanted this job is beyond me.

For the President-Elect, life is going to be difficult when his supporters, no longer united by a common enemy (the Republican Party), will look at each other and realize that what they all had in common was the desire for change. But, they will soon find out that they all have very different ideas about what that change should look like. At that point, they won’t be united anymore.

Where we go from here.

I agree with Obama when he says we need to come together to fix the problems our nation faces. But, I must admit, when he talks about us always being the “United States of America,” I had to wonder, really?. The developing economic problems we’re facing here will do more separating than bringing together. I hope our Republic can survive it.

Credit cards are the same thing. How often have you made purchases on your credit card (or your debit card for that matter) that you never would have forked over cash for? I’ve done it, and in my advancing years I’ve become pretty conservative. The cliche that we’ve been using our homes as ATMs for the past several years is perfectly accurate. We’ve been spending money we didn’t have, profits we hadn’t realized that banks, mortgage brokers and other financial services entities called “equity.” We’re waking up with a huge financial hangover after many years of binge spending.

Congress is debating how to solve the problem. In truth, they’re debating how best to spin a “solution” to the American people that will make them look clean and faultless in the situation. It’s all politics. What our “leaders” do on Capitol Hill doesn’t, in the long run, mean anything. The problem is well beyond anything they can do to solve it. The vast majority of them don’t even understand it. The only important person inside the Beltway that I can confidently say understands what’s going on is Ron Paul, but he’s been so marginalized by the media, he’s out of sight. That’s a shame of historical enormity, because Dr. Paul gets it. The American people will never realize what our two parties have cost us by spinning Ron Paul into the media wilderness, and I feel sad about that.

There is no solution that Congress and the great mass of Americans will accept, because a true, cleansing solution will be economically painful and will mean a dramatic reduction in our standard of living. There’s no room for that in the “American Dream.” But the American Dream is just that, a dream. It is time to wake up, because the sun is coming up and the new day is starting, even though dark clouds threaten. Many Americans will find waking so disorienting and painful, they’ll try to convince themselves they’re still asleep, and will refuse to face reality. They’ll try hard to maintain their standard of living, but it will be impossible. Faced with an angry populace, our leaders will do whatever they can to keep this false, plastic dream alive. They’ve actually gotten quite good at this over the past couple decades, but they’re having to get more and more dramatic in their “solutions.” It’s getting out of hand, and will escape their control very soon.

At that time, I fear our Government’s only option will be military action to distract the American people from the truth of our economic situation. American forces exchanged fire with Pakistani troops today, and that’s a problem, because they’re supposedly our allies. They’re also a nuclear power. I think what’s happening, is that the Bush administration is pushing really, really hard for some resolution to the bin Laden situation, and telling Pakistan that it’s time to give him up. They don’t want to do that, but George Bush doesn’t want to leave office with bin Laden still free. He wants the image of the man who masterminded 9/11 paraded through the streets of New York in chains to be his lasting legacy. Maybe then, he must figure, will people forget about all the failed policies, corruption and incompetence that marked his administration. But, the Pakistanis won’t go down so easy, especially possessing nukes. It could get very, very ugly, very, very quickly.

I would love to simply call the Iranian President a modern-day Hitler, but can’t. He’s no dummy. He’s very intelligent, and despite staying calm as Inskeep called him to task about everything from his alleged desire to “wipe Israel off the map” to, if I heard correctly, charges he was one of the students who took American hostages in the 70s. He responded to it all calmly and intelligently.

But what made the biggest impression on my was his question to Inskeep, when asked about the Iranian system’s freedom of expression and freedom to run for office even if you don’t agree with the Mullahs. Ahmadinejad responded “I ask you, can anyone in fact become a president without the support of either of the two parties here in the United States?”

Oooh. Good point.

I don’t know, ask Ron Paul.

Don’t you just hate it when they do that? You’re in the middle of a perfectly good finger-pointing attack and the guy turns it around by holding up a mirror?

I only hope when Inskeep saw his reflection he was wearing a nicer jacket than the Iranian President was.

Possibly.

More likely though, is that this story helps beat the war drum to hit Iran with this same type of attack. Much like an enormous amount of intelligence surfaced immediately after 9/11 about who attacked us and why, if there were a semi-successful attack on territory and resources not closely tied to the survival of the United States, I have a feeling we’d be served up hard evidence that Iran was behind it, and that they are, in fact, ahead of where we thought they were in their quest for nuclear weapons. That would justify the end of Iran’s participation in the 21st century (and 20th century as well). I don’t believe we would “turn their major cities to glass” as many call for, I just think we would detonate 4 or 5 EMP weapons ourselves, turning a very modern nation with a very backward religious-based authoritarian government into a 19th century society.

If that happens, there will be those in the government who will actually suggest we did them a favor by ending their conflict between the old world and the new. There will be those who say “be careful what you wish for.” Want the kind of male-dominated medieval society the Shiites seem to advocate? Here you go.

Personally, I don’t believe that Iran could pull this off. I think their President likes to talk a big game, but I don’t think the country collectively has the desire to end the modern era. But what’s most important, is what the people who run the United States believe and want, and what the Iranian government gives our leaders the excuse to do.

Both reports talk about the “madness” and “stupidity” of attacking Iran. What the Iranian mouthpiece fails to mention is the necessity, some say is playing a major part in the possible future attack on the country’s nuclear facilities, and of course leadership and infrastructure. With a deepening housing crisis in the U.S. and financial troubles that look bleaker every day (the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history – IndyMac’s assets were seized yesterday), record high oil prices and a weakening dollar, the thought that our leadership might go once again to the well of war to create economic recovery is not as much conspiracy theory as it was a few months ago.

Many talk about the fiscal (not to mention moral) fiasco the Iraq war has become, but looked at from a larger perspective, it has put the U.S. and our allies within easy striking distance of the only remaining oil-rich enemy, as the reports of Israeli jets practicing for an Iranian raid and using U.S. airbases in Iraq in the operations show. And though we seemed to be getting along through the 1990s, clearly the 444 days the Iranians held Americans hostages during the end of the Carter administration has not been forgiven by many of us. Should we commit to a clash of arms, I think there will be more American support for that action than many expect. A clue that an attack is near may well be a PR barrage that brings those memories back to the forefront. Watch for the mainstream media to begin replaying that footage, in an effort to reignite anti-Iranian feelings.

It’s a dangerous time. Watch carefully for the clues, be prepared and keep your family safe.

Well, Photoshop isn’t anything that exotic, these days.

More likely:

“I hear members of Congress saying ‘if we could only nuke them’,” said the congressman Thursday.

The House of Representatives is preparing to approve House Resolution 362, which instructs the President to virtually cut Iran off from the rest of the world. In effect, a blockade would be thrown up, something Iran will almost certainly consider an act of war.

Again, Representative Paul:

This resolution,” Paul said, “Is a virtual War resolution. It is a declaration of tremendous sanctions and boycotts, and embargos on the Iranians – very, very severe…This is unbelievable. This is closing down Iran. Where do we have this authority? Where do we get the moral authority? Where do we get the international legality for this? Where do we get the Constitutional authority for this? This is what we did for 10 years before we went into Iraq: we starved children – 50,000 individuals, it was admitted, probably died because of the sanctions on the Iraqis.

What can possibly be next, other than war?

Dr. Paul smells something big happening, and is entering a statement about it into the Congressional Record. When the history of the early 21st century is read a hundred years from now by my descendents, I sincerely hope they are reading the inspirational story of how the ideas of Dr. Ron Paul saved this nation and the liberty of her citizens. I don’t believe those children will be reading about an evil Bush family who plotted to steal those freedoms from us, but rather a greedy and bungling clan who misused the trust a nation placed in them to put us all in a very, very difficult place.

I’d be happy if there were no villains in the story, just heroes and dolts.

On November 4th, please write-in Ron Paul for President.

We cannot afford the inexperience of Obama or the ignorance of McCain. It’s too critical a time for our Republic, and many, including myself, see it coming to bad end if things don’t change for the better very, very soon.

Ron Paul for President. He’s withdrawn from the race, but not from the revolution.

WhatComesNext.net stands with Dr. Paul.

There’s a common belief that the rest of the world doesn’t love us as much as we’d like them to because we’re heavy-handed and brutal. They don’t like that we send our armies to their lands and waterboard their people and stand around checkpoints with automatic weapons. That’s bunk. The rest of the world doesn’t love us because we’re not them. That’s the issue.

I believe that no matter what we do, the rest of the world will never love us and put little pictures of us on their mantles. When we’re weak, we just invite attack. When we attack them, and then display weakness, we invite justifiable (at least in their minds) attack.

The solution? I think we need to make it clear to the rest of the world that we might just be crazy enough to get really medieval if need be. Let’s face it, there was the thought in the 80s that Ronald Reagan was a crazy-enough anti-Communist that he might let some nukes fly if someone looked at him funny. So they didn’t. Did we get the same fear-based respect when the ever-reasonable, obviously fair and humanitarian Jimmy Carter was in charge? Hardly.

If anything, the attacks of 9/11 were attacks on a seemingly weak-willed nation. Never forget that the George W. Bush who looks like an uncaring invader today, in the beginning days of September 2001 was a recently elected, not very successful (on his own) guy who mostly avoided military service. Who could blame Islamic militant whackos for assuming he’d be a weak-willed adversary?

As Dennis Miller said on the Tonight Show (and elsewhere) in 2002:

“I don’t even understand why we’ve taken nuclear weapons off the table. I mean we treat them like our mother’s good china. We never use them. I think you’ve got to pick a day where there’s no wind, in a desolate part of the Earth, just blow off a bomb just to let them know we’re sitting on a nice hold card, okay?”

He’s right. When there’s a guy in the bar who has a crazy look in his eye and you just know is spoiling for a fight, you don’t flip him off, go outside and tip over his motorcycle.

You try hard not to attract his notice. We need to buy a motorcycle, get a tattoo and when we need to, work up a good “crazy” look.