We are a nation in great decline, attacked from many fronts by issues born fifty years ago and bearing fruit now, and by individuals who do not hold our nation’s interests at heart.

We are plagued by corruption at all levels of government, the shredding of our Constitution, by stoked hatred, class envy, drugs, anarchists, occupiers, violence, anti-Americanism, perverse Hollywood lifestyles, indolence, anti-Christianity, Sharia Law, UN Agenda 21, and communism worship.

The slow loss of our private property, land, freedoms, and sovereignty are the most glaring symbols of our decline. Many factors will combine to lead to our eventual demise as a superpower.

History repeats itself and we are not paying attention. We have stopped teaching long ago any meaningful and truthful history to our children. We have allowed public schools to replace our Judeo-Christian teaching with Marxist ideology and worship.

Ten million new acres of land have been “voluntarily conserved” and “saved from development” since 2005, according to a five-year census recently released by the Land Trust Alliance, one of the 1,700 private land trusts. By 2010, economic development and freedom of movement was no longer allowed on 47 million acres of land.

The world was stunned when the “Eternal City,” Rome, which had stood unconquered for 800 years, fell under the occupation of the barbarian Alaric the Goth.  St. Jerome, born and raised in Rome, wrote from Bethlehem, “When the brightest light on the whole Earth was extinguished, when the Roman Empire was deprived of its head, when, to speak more correctly, the whole world perished in one city, I was dumb with silence.”

The Western Roman Empire lingered on for 66 more years until 476 A.D. when Romulus Augustus, the last emperor, was deposed by his Germanic commanders.

The Eastern Empire survived until 1453 when it was captured by Ottoman Empire. It called itself Roman Empire but it was Greek in life and language.

Alaric wanted to share the Roman way of life, had been asking for years for the title of allied commander, and wanted land for his men. Despair and deception drove him to attack Rome.

Interestingly, even before attacking and conquering Rome, the Goths had been slowly adopting Roman customs, while many generations of Romans living in distant parts of the empire were influenced more and more by barbarians. Ever more Roman soldiers were recruited from Germanic people who had no loyalty for Rome. You could say that the Romans were destroying themselves from within psychologically and demographically.

There are perhaps similarities between the fall of the Roman Empire and other empires whose influence waned in shorter time. Historians claim that empires tend to last on the average 250 years before decline, loss of power, or complete disappearance.

One of the threats that Romans faced was self-induced. Water was carried through lead pipes; Romans drank from lead cups, cooked in lead pipes, sweetened wine with lead oxide, and even used it as face and hair powder.

Archeological and written texts show that many Romans suffered from paralyzed limbs, headaches, listless, lack of energy, sterility, all classic symptoms of chronic lead poisoning. Excavations at Circencester in southern England, found in the period 1969-1976, 450 skeletons in a Roman cemetery dating from the late fourth and early fifth centuries. The bones of adults contained ten times the amount of lead and children had even more.

Evidence suggests that several emperors encouraged Romans to have children, declining population perhaps resulting from drinking lead poison to death and extinction. Fortunately, the Eastern Roman Empire had fewer lead mines and used earthenware for pottery.

In a way, we are as unaware of potential toxins in our food supply and blissfully ignorant as the Romans were about their use of lead. Our global food production and safety is being watched and augmented via Codex Alimentarius (Latin for “Book of Food”), proposed by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization in 1963 under the United Nations umbrella.

The Codex Alimentarius approved substance, initium, was introduced in Romania on December 31, 2009 when the Boc government was asked by the European Union to begin using it on grapes, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions under the name Enervin and Zampro. Instead of lead, the offending substance is initium.

I am not suggesting that initium is lead, but it has the potential to alter our food supply in a fundamental way, possibly damaging our cells, along with genetically engineered plants and seeds, and coupled with the control of vitamins and nutritional supplements.

Initium is a new class of chemicals imposed by Codex Alimentarius as a fungicide; additionally, it increases the growth rate of crops. “Initium is an innovative fungicidal active ingredient developed by BASF.” First registrations have been achieved in Romania, the Netherlands, and the UK. Other countries are slated to follow, Germany, France, USA, and Canada.

The idea behind using chemical substances such as initium under Codex Alimentarius is that the earth cannot feed the entire globe naturally, and we must resort to artificial means through chemicals and genetic engineering in order to obtain higher crop yields, especially since we are competing with animals for scarce resources.

Governments deride as conspiracy theorists those who say that the use of initium and genetic engineering would reduce the globe’s population through increased rates of cancer. Independent unofficial research claims that initium causes higher rates of colon cancer by as much as 65 percent more. One milligram of initium requires an entire year to be eliminated from the body. If produce is eaten daily, initium will never be eliminated, accelerating cell growth into tumors, similarly to the accelerated growth in vegetable cells. Romanian authorities are happy that initium will double crop yields in a short period.

Codex began when the United Nations authorized the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization to develop a universal food code in order to “harmonize” regulations for dietary supplements worldwide and set international safety standards for the purpose of international trade. When Big Pharma stepped in, Codex began focusing not so much on food safety but on controlling vitamins and food supplements.

Codex supersedes U.S. domestic laws without the American people’s voice or vote. Under the terms of the Uruguay round of GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), which created the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States agreed to harmonize its domestic laws to the international standards. Standards for dietary supplements developed by the United Nation’s Codex Alimentarius Commission’s Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Use are included.

Our federal government must change federal laws and require state and local governments to change their laws in accordance with international law. “Members are fully responsible under this Agreement for the observance of all provisions… members shall formulate and implement positive measures and mechanisms in support of the observance of the provisions…by other than central government bodies.” (WTO TBT Agreement at Article 3.5)

If we allow United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the World Health Organization to control our food, they control our people, our freedom, and our population. Consequences of such control:

• Genetically engineered or altered foods, supplements, seeds and pesticides will be sold worldwide with or without labeling
• Dietary supplements would not be sold for preventive or therapeutic use
• Low doses will be sold by Big Pharma at higher potencies and higher prices
• Prescriptions will be required for higher potencies
• Garlic and peppermint could be classified as drugs or a third category (neither food nor drug) that only Big Pharma could regulate or sell
• New dietary supplements would be banned unless approved by Codex

Vitamin C above 200 mg, vitamin E above 45 IUs, vitamin B1 over 2.4 mg, and other vitamins in normal doses are illegal in Norway and Germany. The Norway pharmaceutical company, Shering-Plough, controls the production of Echinacea tincture, ginkgo, and other herbs.

Paul Hellyer says in his book, “The Evil Empire,” “Codex Alimentarius is supported by international banks and multinational corporations… and is in reality a bill of rights for these banks and the corporations they control. It will hand over our sovereign rights concerning who may or may not invest in our countries to an unelected world organization run by big business.”

It is time to wake up, take control back from the United Nations before we become another has been superpower or worse yet, a modern extinguished Roman Empire.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh is a writer for Canada Free Press, Modern Conservative, speaker, author, and radio commentator. "Echoes of Communism" is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Her second book on Agenda 21 will be coming out in February 2012. 

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On a recent flight, I was handed a bright, red and white napkin with cute polar bears on both sides with the logo, “Together We Can Help Protect Their Home.” The Coca Cola famous trademark was augmented by the words, “Arctic Home.”

I decided to check their Arctic Home website. It was exquisitely done, with soothing, sleep-inducing sounds of ocean waves and beautiful shots of polar bears in their Arctic habitat. The site explained, “Our goal, in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund, is to raise awareness and funds to help create a safe haven for polar bears on Arctic refuge. As a symbol of our commitment, for the first time ever, we are turning our red Coca Cola can white. Please join us by making a donation so the polar bear always has a place to call home.”

Coca Cola will give up to $1 million in total donations made with a product code through March 15, 2012. The dollar count so far was $25,419. It seemed like a worthy cause. However, I was not aware that the polar bears needed a safe haven on Arctic refuge, their home turf. I do not know of many people currently or in the past that have made too many tracks on Arctic refuge, deliberately trying to disrupt their home.

I do know that Al Gore made a Power Point presentation to the Nobel Prize committee, claiming that the polar bear habitat is threatened by global warming. Since bears cannot find ice floes to rest on, as ice areas are rapidly melting, polar bears were drowning. The statement was proven later to be utterly false. It is sad that the truly deserving candidate, who saved thousands of Jewish children from the Holocaust, lost her Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore.

Coca Cola had another related link, Live Positively.com. Under many headings such as Planet, Climate Protection, Sustainability, Water Conservation, Community Partnerships, Global Water Challenge, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Packaging, Water Stewardship, Water Footprint Assessment, I was struck by the similarity of its goals and buzzwords to the goals of UN Agenda 21.

I found out that a way had been devised to measure water footprint. I was familiar with the hoax of measuring carbon footprint, a way to carbon tax offending corporations and enrich the coffers of governments, particularly the United Nations. The Cap and Trade legislation that failed in Congress would have made many people billionaires, including Al Gore.

The Water Stewardship and Replenish Report of January 2011 documents how the Nature Conservancy and Global Environment and Technology Foundation developed the methodologies in calculating liters of water replenished. (Community Water Partnership Reports)

Community Watershed Partnership is “working to provide safe water to primary schools in Western Kenya” and other countries.

The World Wildlife Fund, Global Water Challenge, United Nations Development Programme, the Nature Conservancy, CARE, Ocean Conservancy, the CEO Water Mandate, are NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) trying to influence our public policy on water use and reuse without input from Congress or American voters.

Every time global organizations and companies use global governance to tell us how to live, how to be better stewards of the environment, we are losing our freedom to govern ourselves. Global governance is “The framework of rules, institutions, and practices that set limits on behavior of individuals, organizations, and companies.” (Henry Lamb)

Global governance and our Constitution are at odds and they cannot co-exist. Under global governance, the governed derive their freedom from the consent of the government. Our “we the people” freedom under the U.S. Constitution is a gift from our Creator.

As the Constitution declares, “All legislative power herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” “No legislative power is supposed to go anywhere except to the people who you, the citizens of America, elect.” (Lord Monckton)

“Together with our bottling partners, we collaborate with the World Wildlife Fund, United Nations Development Programme, Global Water Challenge, CARE, Ocean Conservancy and others to protect watersheds and support initiatives that bring clean water and sanitation to underserved areas. Since 2005, we have developed Community Water Partnerships, with more than 320 projects in 86 countries

We also are involved with the Water Footprint Network to develop standards and guidelines for water footprint accounting and to define the concept of water neutrality. In 2010, we collaborated with The Nature Conservancy to look at water footprint s as a water resource management tool in a report titled Product Water Footprint Assessments. This work complements our engagement with the CEO Water Mandate, a joint initiative of the United Nations Global Compact and the government of Sweden. The CEO Water Mandate seeks to build an international movement of committed companies working to develop strategies and solutions to help address the water challenges facing the world today.”(Coca Cola website)

Since the Coca Cola site describes what steps they have taken to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce greenhouse gasses emissions, it is apparent that the myth of global warming, now renamed climate change has not died, on the contrary, it has gained track.

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon called on world leaders this week at a conference in Bangladesh to collaborate on establishing a multi-billion dollar fund to combat global warming. The whole world knows that global warming is a left wing manufactured hoax. Nobody has any money to give third world nations because all developed nations are broke. Nevertheless, he wants to establish a $100 billion dollar green fund each year dedicated to help countries most affected by global warming, taming the damage caused by climate change. There are no rising sea levels and there is no increased salinity of ocean water as he claims. In his opinion, the global economic crisis should not hinder the effort to fund $100 billion each year.

Nobody disputes the fact that climate does change, and that the earth does go through periods of intense natural disasters, but it has not been proven scientifically that human behavior and activity is causing them. Scientists have demonstrated the existence of intense solar flares activity and actual global cooling, when temperatures were compared over decades.

People do care about nature, a clean environment, recycling natural resources, including water, and preserving as many of the earth’s species as possible. However, Paul Watson, the co-founder of Greenpeace has said, “The data does not matter, it does not matter what is true, it onlymatters what people believe is true.” Indeed, people believe what they are told, if repeated enough, no matter what the accurate scientific data bears.

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis,”said David Rockefeller, the Club of Rome executive member. Judi Bari, principal organizer of Earth First provides that major crisis, the supposed human destruction of the environment.”If we do not overthrow capitalism, we do not have a chance of saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism. I don’t think it is possible under capitalism.” Having lived under communism for twenty years, I have experienced firsthand the severe air, water, and soil pollution that we experienced on a daily basis. I have also seen the dangerous smog in China during the Olympic Games.

As Lord Monckton aptly described in a recent interview for the Daily Caller, we must revisit the global warming debacle. “The environmental agenda of the hard left, socialist, fascist, communist agenda has virtually nothing to do with the environment.”

The global warming debacle “lacks academic rigor, intellectual honesty, and the scientific method once the hallmark of the West.” We are indebted to the unknown person at the University at East Anglia who released ten years of emails between faux scientists. The incorrect data drove the debate in the direction of indoctrinating the planet into the Green Monster, UN Agenda 21 plan. A massive campaign was launched to de-develop the United States.

In spite of defeating Cap and Trade, the Climate-gate scandal, cheating and malevolence of East Anglia University bad scientists, the global warming fallacy remains an active problem because, at the level of the states, various regional greenhouse gas initiatives are still being put in place. The governor of Maryland is trying to turn the state into a “corporate fascist state” with his Plan Maryland. California has introduced draconian measures to control the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide, necessary for all life. (Lord Monckton)

The Club of Rome, an environmental think-tank, consultants to the United Nations, shocked me with their blatantly false and outrageous statement that validated how the hard left thinks and acts, “The common enemy of humanity is man. In search of a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”

Climate scaremongering “is nothing less than shutting down the West.” If you shut down Maryland completely and return it to Stone Age, it will be extinguished or offset by three days of economic activity in China.  “This global warming scare is an attempt to establish a tyranny over the mind of man. A love of nature… is something that lies very deep within all of us, and this is what the hard left is so ruthlessly and so profitably exploiting.” Don’t ever give money again to the Environmental Defense Fund, Greenpeace, and the Worldwide Fund, no matter how many cuddly teddy bears, panda bears, or penguins they show you.” In spite of spending $3 billion on environmental propaganda, these organizations are losing the argument. (Lord Monckton)

As soon as I finish this article, I will stop drinking Coca Cola products, I will order two cases of Rush Limbaugh’s tea, “Two if by Tea” and I will drink to polar bears that have nothing to fear from human activity.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh is a speaker, radio commentator, freelance writer for Canada Free Press, Modern Conservative, Romanian Conservative, and author. "Echoes of Communism" is available at Amazaon in paperback and Kindle. Her second book, Agenda 21, will be out on February 2012.

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Today I visited the National Building Museum, a private, non-profit organization. The exhibits occupied about ten percent of the building. The rest were halls for lectures and other activities.

The imposing, three-story atrium, was being readied for a lavish fund-raising gala and was being draped in shades of arresting purple, imitating a huge circus tent, three stories high, in line with the leit-motif, “the cirque.”

It did not take long to exhaust the exhibits and the Lego construction room, show casing a few famous landmarks built to scale from hundreds of thousands of grey and clear Lego pieces.

The gargantuan inner Corinthian columns appeared to support the entire building, yet they seemed anachronistic in comparison to the red-bricked exterior surrounded by a yellow freeze of civil war soldiers.

A simple silver plaque listed annual donors to the private museum and the list contained unusual people and organizations: USAID, World Bank, U.S. Department of Energy, Rockefeller Brothers, U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Green Building Council, Home Depot, Fannie Mae Foundation, Freddie Mac Foundation, American Planning Association, National Association of Realtors, to name just a few.

I could be mistaken but I thought Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had received bailout funds and were asking again for round two of handouts from taxpayers to the tune of billions. They are broke but are charitable to private organizations with our taxpayer dollars.

One of the halls was holding a lecture on “temporary urbanism.” Being a very curious person by nature, I became intrigued and joined the audience. I was going to learn about the role of streetscape design in attracting retailers, restaurants, and other small businesses to abandoned or neglected urban properties.

The lecturer introduced us to the D.C. Office of Planning’s Temporary Urbanism Initiative, which “seeks to transform vacant spaces into vibrant destinations and animated showcases” through unique uses in commercial corridors of pop-up buildings made of “repurposed materials and lighting.”

The young man was extolling the virtues of the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT and their rapid proto-typing of housing and Internet through “Fab Labs” working around the world in countries like Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, India, Costa Rica, Norway, and Afghanistan.

I moved on to the museum bookstore, a place usually unavoidable, but this bookstore I had to see. An entire wall of bookshelves from top to bottom was dedicated to Smart Growth, Green Building, Sustainability, and everything Sustainable Green World propaganda. As I was leafing through various expensive tomes, I was struck by the realization that I could not escape the Green Monster of UN Agenda 21 even in a museum.

My plan was to spend an enjoyable afternoon learning more about the history of buildings in Washington, D.C., hoping to escape the heavy traffic, the bleak, daily economic outlook, and political news from the Capitol and here I was bumping heads again with UN Agenda 21.

The main exhibit showed samples of building materials, wall covers, and portraits of various architects and philanthropists who contributed to famous buildings around D.C. and the country.

Most interestingly, I found out that the activist and community organizer, Sammie Abdullah Abbott (1908-1990) had built a multiracial, grassroots organization called the Emergency Committee on the Transportation Crisis (ECTC) to halt the building of freeways in the District of Columbia. The headline in 1969 was “Freeway Cancer Hits D.C.” ECTC coordinated similar activism across the country. “Congestion cancer” in northern Virginia from insufficient roads is a more accurate description today. Who knew that community organizers and agitators were so powerful so long ago?

ECTC fought the destruction of black neighborhoods in the path of new roadways. The racist propaganda at the time screamed that the North Central Freeway was “A White Man’s Road thru a Black Man’s Home!”

In the manner of Acorn, ECTC lobbied public officials, picketed Congress and Mayor Walter Washington’s home, held sit-ins, and testified at public hearings to prevent construction of the North Central Freeway. They were so successful that a National Coalition on the Transportation Crisis was formed. In 1976, the battle was resolved when the U.S. Department of Transportation paid for the district’s share of the Metro and the planned bridges and freeways were never built.

The three concentric rings of expressways proposed in 1950 by the National Capital Park and Planning Commission were never built thanks to this activist organization. The Capitol Beltway, the single ring completed and a few unconnected segments survive from the proposed inner loop. Now I know why the D.C. area and suburbs are the most congested in the country and who is responsible for the dearth of roads to handle the traffic.

The community activism, which began with curtailing freeways, is now entering phase two, curtailing building “sprawl” in suburbia and rural areas by concentrating population in high density approved zones in order to “save the planet.” It was an interesting and fruitful trip to the museum.

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We never give it a thought when we sign our names to a 78-page document agreeing to whatever terms and conditions the document entails. We are in a hurry to use the new game, application, or program that our computers and electronic gadgets are downloading.

If we are so casual and eager to sign a document that we have no idea what it says nor do we care or understand its ramifications, I wonder, how valuable is the oath of office that public employees must swear in order to uphold the rules, duties, and responsibilities implied therein?

Do judges uphold the law impartially as they swore to do, or do they interpret each case before the court to suit their political views, their activism, or the administration of the moment?

Do police officers serve and protect everyone equally and take bullets in the line of duty for total strangers because they have sworn an oath to defend all citizens from harm?

Do soldiers swear allegiance to the Constitution, knowing that they place their lives in harm’s way for their country, for their fellow Americans who sometimes disrespect what they do and deride their patriotism?

Do men and women in uniform know and understand that they might give their lives for the indolent and malcontent squatters who claim that the rich owe them a living from cradle to grave?

Would all soldiers defend the Constitution if called upon to do so, or would they follow orders contrary to their oath?

Should we weep in outrage that Old Glory, our cherished flag, the last cloth that drapes returning coffins from the battlefield, is burned and trampled by other Americans who do not care about the sacrifice, altruism, and exceptionalism of their fellow American volunteer soldiers?

Many generations of Americans gave their lives for our freedom to speak freely and assemble anywhere we want peacefully. They swore an oath and kept it. They had honor.

Did they die so that malcontents can burn the flag, demand the wealth of the rich in doped-up frenzy, infringe on our rights to enjoy a park free of litter, free of bums urinating and defecating in public, free of paid youth without a compass who direct their supposed anger to the wrong segment of society? The very people who destroyed their ability to find a job are the ones stoking hatred and paying them to protest the rest of us who are job creators and engines of economic growth.

Did TSA agents remember the oath they had signed and sworn to protect Americans from potential terrorism? They must have forgotten, otherwise they would not be groping and molesting innocent Americans, the elderly, the handicapped, and small children, in their misplaced eagerness to accomplish the ill-advised marching orders.

Have Congressmen forgotten that they had sworn an oath to protect and serve the interests of the American people, that they truly are civil servants to the Republic? They certainly behave as omnipotent masters not servants to the people. The laws they pass are so damaging and counterproductive to the interests of “we the people” that their oath has become meaningless and worthless.

Have teachers forgotten that their duty is to disseminate the truth objectively, free of hatred, envy, personal ideology, religious creed, union and party affiliation bias? Have they forgotten their very important moral responsibility to shape future Americans in our Founding Fathers’ wise vision?

Will doctors violate the Hippocratic Oath in order to deliver “socially just” and rationed medical care according to the new and improved Obama healthcare law? Will they provide lesser care to the detriment of the patients in order to fulfill the law’s requirements?

Will firefighters and police officers be unable to respond to the citizens’ needs as quickly and as often, because Congress failed to pass Obama’s new and generous for unions jobs bill, or will they follow their oath?

When we sign our names on a document, a promissory note, a contract, a bank check, an oath of office, we put our honor on the line and agree to deliver on that promise.

Honor is the last bastion of our humanity, of our freedom. Honor defines who we are. As Publilius Syrus said, “What is left when honor is lost?” Without honor, we are nothing, and we have nothing.

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The Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction or as it is known in popular parlance, “The Super Committee,” has a deadline to meet. As November 23 approaches, 12 Congresspersons must make a decision on debt reduction in order to bring under control the lavish spending of the last three years that is threatening our national security.

Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, said, “I think our rising debt levels pose a national security threat, and it poses a national security threat in two ways: It undermines our capacity to act in our own interest, and it does constrain us where constraint may be desirable.  And it also sends a message of weakness internationally.” Yet she did not stop giving away our taxpayer dollars to our foes all over the world.

Admiral Mullen said it more succinctly, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.”

“The Super Committee is this Constitutional abomination that arose out of the debt ceiling negotiations. It is 12 handpicked representatives of the Senate and House leadership that meet behind closed doors short-circuit everything that is involved in our legislative process, in the parliamentary institutions that have evolved over centuries to distill a common direction from many diverse viewpoints. Their mission is to come up with that decision while side-lining 523 elected representatives of the people of the United States and dump their decisions in the laps of those representatives, for a take it or leave it, up or down vote that cannot even be amended. Bad process makes bad policy and this is the worst process that I have ever seen. Obviously, we will see the repercussions of it when the committee is required to submit its recommendations before Thanksgiving. As you know, the debt limit deal included a so-called sequestration, which initiates automatic spending reductions over a period of ten years if they cannot come to a conclusion. Frankly, I am looking at that as Plan A. (Rep. Tom Mc Clintock, R-Ca)

The twelve members of the “Super Committee” are:

          Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), Co-chair

• Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), Co-chair
• Sen. Max Baucus (D-Montana)
• Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Ca)
• Rep. Dave Camp (R-Michigan)
• Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.)
• Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
• Sen. John Kyl (R-Arizona)
• Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio)
• Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa)
• Rep. Fred Upton (R-Michigan)
• Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md)

Sequestration is “the cancellation of budgetary resources for the purpose of enforcing statutory budget limits and pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) requirements. This process is triggered automatically when these statutory limits of PAYGO have been violated as a result of legislative actions.”

The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, commonly known as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, first established the sequestration process in 1985.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 highlights the following defense budget:

• FY 2011 $530 billion
• FY  2012 President’s request $553 billion
• CBO baseline for FY 2013 $549 billion
• President’s projection for FY 2013 $571 billion

The automatic trigger would return based defense budget to FY 2007 levels (adjusted for inflation) and would hold at that level for eight years.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 was divided into two parts:

1. Caps on non-war related discretionary spending for FY 2012 to FY 2021; these caps are further divided into security spending and  non-security spending for FY 2012-2013; for FY 2012-2021, a single cap is provided for all discretionary spending (Defense, Homeland Security, Veteran Affairs, National Nuclear Security Administration, the intelligence community, and international affairs)
2. Automatic trigger to force cuts if Congress fails to act on the recommendations of the Joint Committee or the Joint Committee’s recommendations result in less than $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction

The Joint Committee must approve by a simple majority its deficit reduction plan by November 23, 2011. By December 23, Congress must hold an up or down vote on the Joint Committee bill with a simple majority required for approval. If a bill with deficit reduction of at least $1.2 trillion is not approved by both chambers and signed into law by the President by January 15, 2012, the trigger provision automatically takes effect and the defense budget will be $472 billion.

According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, the patterns of the 112^th Congress has been of “management by crisis,” beginning with the near government shutdown in April 2011 and the narrowly avoided government default on August 2, 2011. (Todd Harrison)

According to the Washington Post headline, “tax issue handcuffs Super Committee.” The twelve lawmakers are yet to agree on a basic framework.

• Republicans refuse to raise taxes
• Republicans rejected the President’s deal to cut federal health and retirement programs in exchange for $1 trillion in new revenue over the next decade
• Automatic reductions would fall heavily on the Pentagon
• Democrats refuse to commit to specific entitlement cuts
• Republicans suggest that tax collections should rise solely through economic growth
• Super Committee suggested to cut entitlement spending and close several tax loopholes
• Super Committee suggested that tax-writing committees should overhaul the tax code to lower rates and raise sufficient additional revenue to meet the $1.2 trillion target
• Others urged the Super Committee to count the savings of approximately $1.1 trillion over the next decade from the drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan towards the $1.2 trillion reduction in the deficit reduction bill; House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) criticized such war savings as “gimmicks and accounting tricks.”

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), in his infinite wisdom, promised to defuse the trigger through legislation if the Super Committee does not come to an agreement.

Unlike S&P, which downgraded our country’s credit worthiness status, Moody has decided to uphold the AAA rating in August because “more than $2 trillion in deficit reduction was at least planned.”

The Department of Defense was advised to make contingency plans for sharp cuts as required by the trigger in FY 2013.

The Romans had a very wise motto, “Si vis pacem, para bellum,” “If you want peace, prepare for war.” As we lower our ability to defend ourselves against enemy threats, consider what uncontrolled national debt has lead to in other countries:

• Bankruptcy
• Lack of capital formation
• Retarded economic growth
• Monetizing deficits (overprinting of money in excess of goods and services produced in the economy thus causing inflation; the Federal Reserve System Chairman Bernanke calls this overprinting of money euphemistically “quantitative easing,” or QE)
• Social turmoil, famine, revolutions

Not paying our national debt is not an option. When Venezuelan dictator Cipriano Castro who borrowed lots of money in early 20^th century and refused to pay it back when payment was demanded, in December 1902 warships from Italy, Britain, and Germany shelled Venezuelan forts and blockaded the country’s ports until Caracas paid up.

If our government borrows more money, more pressure would force us to cut defense spending and it would be painfully evident proof that we are a fading superpower.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh is a freelance writer for Canada Free Press and a frequent radio commentator on "Butler on Business," WAFS 1190 Atlanta, "The Unsolicited Opinion" (Republic Broadcast Network), Silvio Canto's Business Roundtable on Blogtalk Radio, and a speaker on issues of education, immigration, UN Agenda 21, communism, and comparative economics. She is currently writing a second book on UN Agenda 21 due out in Spring 2011. "Echoes of Communism" is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle. 

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On a sunny fall day, I was walking in my hometown, dodging dozens of cars parked everywhere, legally and illegally, on sidewalks and streets, careful to avoid being run over even in pedestrian crosswalks.

I was searching for my favorite bakery that Dad used to take me to for a special treat. I was disappointed when I realized that it was gone; I half expected that it might not be there since 25 years have passed.

The building was still there attached to a row of various privatized stores after communism fell in 1989. The new occupants had opened boutiques, taking advantage of the new economic freedom of free market capitalism. What I did not expect was the discovery that the new renter of the former bakery was the Social Democrat Party. I had thought the commies were gone. Here they were, one of the twelve or so parties, jockeying for political control.

As we entered the hallway, my husband and I were still speaking English when we spied a large, occupied table. All eyes turned to us with curiosity and annoyance. The austere and smoky atmosphere was reminiscent of the former communist party planning meetings. We excused ourselves and explained in Romanian that we wanted information about their platform.

All the literature was printed in bright red in case there was any doubt about their socialist/communist leanings explained in the motto, “The LEFT is going to do everything right.”

The very young president of the Social Democrat Party admitted that he had no connection to the communist era but he wanted to do everything in his power for the future, disregarding the past completely. He said, we built a very good governing program for today’s Romania with the most knowledgeable party members, academics, professors, and union members. “We will be a party of the masses, of the workers.” This sounded like the former communist party who promised to protect the proletariat against the evil bourgeoisie, yet the planners were party apparatchiks and academic elitists. They knew what was better for the poor masses.

Promising to reinstate remuneration to the levels prior to the recent austerity measures of cutting pensions and salaries by 25 percent, the brochure explained that a person being paid 25 percent less, will work 25 percent less. I have heard this before under communism. “The communists pretended to pay the workers and the workers pretended to work.”

The Social Democrats demanded a 40 percent increase in salaries across the board, indexing by inflation not just salaries but welfare checks as well. They promised collective bargaining and guaranteed jobs to everyone. No modification of contracts would be allowed without union approval in consultation with big government.

The cost of energy would be frozen and excess cost paid by government subsidies. The rich would pay a higher tax than the middle class would. Currently, Romania has a flat tax. Financial control by the state would be increased. This sounded like the Economic Police we used to have under communism. While Romania was becoming capitalist, these PSD members were pushing for return to communism, using euphemisms, class warfare, and stratagems to accomplish it. 

The new socialists were asking the welfare recipients to contribute volunteer work in the community. By doing so, they were hoping to ease the pressures on unemployment. Really?

As they promised to make government more transparent, laws and decisions easily accessible and debatable on line, I could not help but compare it to the empty promises made by our own American regime, promises that were never kept.

The Social Democrats were promising the development of infrastructure, massive infusion of capital, “green energy,” carbon taxes for polluters, changing the politics of urbanism, agricultural and rural development, similar to the White House Rural Council. If that sounds very similar to the goals of UN Agenda 21, it is.

Massive funds for economic programs and development came from the European Union to which Romania became a member in 2007. EU offers 200,000 Euros to a businessperson who is willing to invest ten percent of his/her own capital and follow their rules. EU offers 25,000 Euros for a farm with no personal investment. It sounds enticing but there are specific rules that must be followed.

The Social Democrats were guaranteeing social welfare to parents to raise their children, pay for their day care, medical assistance, physical education in communist style sport clubs, socio-cultural indoctrination, environmental education, “school after school” programs, physical education for the masses, national health care system, national pharmaceutical system, and a cradle to grave nanny state. 

While the citizens were busy getting their private properties back that had been confiscated by communists from 1947-1989, the Social Democrats were working overtime to turn the country back into communism by making empty promises that could not possibly work because they have failed everywhere else they had been tried.

The new socialists encouraged birthrates by promising to pay mothers to have children just as they did under Ceausescu’s regime. Two hundred Euros were proposed to those willing to tie the knot. Special concessions and programs were promised to communities of minorities such as “rromi,” the new PC misnomer for gypsies.

The Social Democrats promised a “minimum guaranteed justice system” and a national program to stop criminality. They assured citizens that all judicial decisions would be published on the Internet. To discourage the infractions of drivers of fast cars, the speeding fines were to be correlated to the value of the vehicle.

Finally, in line with the new European programs and infrastructure (rail, roads, energy transportation, Internet), the new socialists emphasized communitarianism, smart growth, sustainability, and joint agricultural politics based on rural development and ecological production. For those of you who are not familiar with UN Agenda 21, these are their buzzwords.

Would citizens fall for this new socialist/communist rhetoric? Have they forgotten how bad life was under communism and how much they wished to be free? Some were shot trying to cross the border in order to defect to the west. Some drowned trying to swim across the Danube to freedom.

Seniors with misplaced communist nostalgia, would answer definitely yes. Middle-aged adults would answer with a resounding no. Young people, who are naïve, idealistic, and liberals at heart would eagerly try socialism. “Everybody wants free stuff. Welfare is so much better than work.” Those who do not study history carefully are doomed to repeat it.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh is a freelance writer for Canada Free Press, Modern Conservative, a speaker on issues of UN Agenda 21, education, communism, comparative economics, and a frequent radio commentator on Butler on Business WAFS 1190 Atlanta, Silvio Canto Jr. in Dallas, the Unsolicited Opinion on Republic Broadcasting Network, and an author. "Echoes of Communism" is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Her upcoming book on UN Agenda 21 will be released next spring.

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The last three years have turned our country upside down politically, economically, racially, morally, fiscally, and internationally. I no longer recognize the U.S. that many citizens around the globe admired, aspired to emulate, dreamed to visit, owed their freedom to, and considered big brother in times of need, disaster, and danger.

We have lost NASA space program and our leading edge in space. We are now left with renting a chair on the Chinese or Russian flights, we are the poor cousin who does not own a car and must pay for a ride.

The emotional and hollow “hope and change” for utopia has turned into a nightmare that some of us recognized from past painful experience. We have lost our triple rating as a financial power, we are a nation with shady credit and insurmountable debt. It threatens our national security.

We have a housing crisis caused and manipulated by Democrat Congressmen like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Maxine Watters who kept assuring President Bush that we did not need to clean up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We did not need to reign in the forced lending of expensive homes to poor people who did not intend to pay them back. Democrats told us that it was unfair to deny mortgages to people with shady credit.

The Administration nationalized Chrysler and GM, violating private contracts, shafting shareholders and bondholders to the benefit of unions and a foreign corporation.

Obama took over college lending with the intention of telling students where to go to school, what to study, where to work when they graduated, and how much money they could make.

Banks who were forced to make bad mortgage loans failed and were bailed out with taxpayer money. Even foreign owned insurance companies received our hard-earned dollars. We made investments in the oil industries of Brazil while preventing American companies from drilling.

This administration stopped giving FEMA funds for disaster relief to states that did not vote for Obama or Democrats. Some states were completely ignored in their hours of need, while others were turned down twice such as the Commonwealth of Virginia.

EPA issued stringent regulations responsible for the shutdown of coal-burning plants that generate electricity. The expressed purpose was to make electricity more expensive and discourage its use. Seventy thousand jobs were threatened in West Virginia due to excessive mining regulations.

Billions of dollars in grants were given to solar panel makers like Solyndra that eventually went bankrupt because they could not make the panels cheap enough to make the industry efficient in generating solar power. Presently solar energy is not going to be able to replace energy needs for the largest economy on earth.

The states of Arizona and Alabama were sued by the Justice Department for passing acts to enforce immigration laws. The federal government failed to protect our borders adequately.

The medical and health insurance system were nationalized by strong-arming Congress, bribing it, forcing the passage of a 3,000-page bill that nobody understood, read, or debated thoroughly as it should have been. In spite of the large citizen opposition, it passed in the dead of night.

Taxes were increased and imposed on the average American while stoking the masses with the lies of “tax the rich,” “tax the corporate fat cats,” “make them pay their fair share,” “make Wall Street pay.” Acorn played a pivotal role in intimidating CEOs into giving in to their demands by protests at their homes. Acorn helped register millions of non-existent citizens, dead voters, animals, and cartoon characters. 

College students, who have no understanding of how the economy works or even care to understand how it works, were paid to protest and occupy Wall Street and other cities around the nation with money from SEIU, Daily Kos, Moveon.org, Soros, Van Jones, and other like-minded Marxist outlets. Defecating publicly in parks, stoned, drinking beer, and yelling non-sense, they appear to be the armies that Obama had promised in his pre-election speeches that will “fundamentally transform America” through a communist revolution.

America was not in need of change, it did not need fundamental transformation. The ardent supporters did not pay attention to the message. They were mesmerized by the charisma, the style, the youth, the skin color, and the empty suit promises from a man who never held a real job in his life, just like some of his voters who lived in their parents basements.

Protesting capitalism, while listening to music on iPods, using iphones, and other electronic devices invented by entrepreneurial Americans, paid malcontents asked for sleeping bags, food, doctors, medicine, and other goods produced by the free market capitalism.

We now have crony capitalism – only Obama’s friends and donors need apply for special favors, grants, and stimuli. We had so many bailouts, grants, incentives and jobs programs. We have lost count of the billions wasted that lined the pockets of his supporters and Democrat campaign chests instead of fixing our infrastructure, our schools, roads, and bridges.

Unemployment is around twenty percent, not the deceptive nine percent reported in the media. There are almost 25 million unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers. This number represents 20 percent of our labor force of approximately 125 million Americans.

College graduates are beginning to wake up that they are not going to find the dream job they thought they were going to waltz into, making a six-figure salary just because they received a college degree in some esoteric field with no job openings or prospects. Nobody wants to start at the bottom and gain experience.

Government does not create jobs, it creates bureaucracies with despotic bureaucrats who take away and control more and more of our freedoms. Small businesses and corporations create jobs, the very corporations that are vilified constantly by Obama and his Democrats.

Obamacare has every employer on the edge about hiring. They are not sure what tax and health insurance liabilities they will incur with each new employee. Business and consumer confidence are very low.

The Democrat controlled Congress passed bills to regulate Wall Street and banks. They are now bearing fruit in the form of higher costs passed on to consumers. Are banks greedy? The greed comes from Congress and Obama's administration who want power, votes, and re-election contributions. Many bills Congress passed allowed businesses to move overseas, to reduce or eliminate their tax burden, and to make it easier hire foreign workers. Companies made generous campaign contributions to Congress.

The job czar, the head of GE, has moved some GE factories to other countries, citing higher demand and a better business environment. It is a blatant conflict of interest to have the head of GE tasked with the creation of American jobs.

Health insurance premiums have increased by 9 percent and many citizens will not be able to keep their insurance or their doctors as promised. We are losing the best medical care in the world because a few million people needed insurance – we are throwing the baby out with the bathwater instead of addressing the real problems such as tort reform and buying insurance across state lines.

We no longer have culture debates on various issues as we used to have under past presidents: abortion, animal rights, bilingual education, drugs, gun politics, multiculturalism, sexual education, stem cell research, law and order, media bias, moral apathy, feminism, secularism, and the death penalty.  These debates are gone as if everything has been resolved and decided by the current regime and the liberal media.

The conservative majority protests by millions under the Tea Party banner were generally ignored by the media. The Taxed Enough Already (TEA) message was distorted, maligned, and astro-turfed. The liberal minority protested violently and the media displayed them ad nauseam as if they are the only citizens in this country. Hate speech replaced political correctness with the same end game, to silence the free speech of conservatives.

Sharia Law was introduced in parts of the country although it is incompatible with our Constitution and our legal system. We seem to be unable to stop its advancement and promotion by a small, well organized, and funded minority.

United Nations Agenda 21 has been stealthily introduced since 1992 at the state and local levels and it is now in the full phase of implementation. The Obama federal government has mandated a Sustainability plan for every department that includes green energy, land use, water use, green building, smart city growth, and green transportation. The end game is to confiscate private property by making it useless to the owner and forcing them into mixed use, high-rise tenements, five minutes from work and school by bike or walking.

Public transportation will replace our use of cars. In certain D.C. suburbs, roads are being narrowed to make driving and parking difficult or impossible. Maryland high school students cannot read or write well but they must pass an environmental literacy exam in order to graduate.

We are ruled by EPA and Department of Energy fiat rules and regulations that empower government bureaucrats to take our private wealth and re-distribute it to the poor in this country and around the globe in the name of social justice.

We have spent trillions of dollars on the War on Poverty and we have not made a dent into this perceived poverty. We have lost this war but the rhetoric of poverty gets louder and louder from the left.

Advisors to the White House want a population control plan because they think the planet is strained and there are just too many inhabitants. The herd must be culled through attrition or birth control because we are hurting the environment. We must become slaves and good stewards to the environment, giving land back to the wild according to the Wildlands Project.

Law and order is no longer enforced, as it should be, officers are looking away as vagrants/protesters occupy public and private areas for weeks but are allowed to stay because owners have ties to either the mayor’s office or the elites in power in Washington. Voters were threatened and intimidated by baton yielding individuals who were not prosecuted.

The compliant media are open promoters of Marxism, no longer afraid to show their true socialist colors they have been hiding for years. Hollywood is promoting and advocating re-education camps for the rich who refuse to give up their wealth in excess of $100 million. If that fails, they are calling for the guillotine. Is this America we know and want?

Nobody respects us in the world anymore. People are shocked that we elected such overt Marxist incompetence in Washington. Where is the unconditional love Obama’s presidency was going to bring us? He is disrespected more than many former presidents because his lavish spending has brought the rest of the world closer to the brink of financial meltdown and ruin.

Luckily, we do have a few items left in our arsenal of freedoms: our dignity, our guns, our voting rights, and freedom of speech and assembly. If they shut down the Internet, we can still meet and honor our duty to save and protect the Constitution and our country from destruction.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh is a freelance writer for Canada Free Press, a frequent radio commentator on Butler on Business, WAFS 1190, Atlanta, The Unsolicited Opinion on Republic Broadcasting Network, Silvio Canto Jr. Business Roundtable, an author, and a speaker on issues of education, communism, and UN Agenda 21. "Echoes of Communism" is available at Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

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Living in the South most of my adult life, I have experienced an explosion of illegal immigrant population in the nineties. Border laws were enforced in the 70s and 80s. It was hard to become a legal resident, much less an American citizen. People used legal channels and waited patiently for the resolution of their visas.

We did not have to speak a foreign language in our own country, press 2 for Spanish. There were no duplicate signs in Spanish in every large store. Forms were not printed in Spanish and doctors were not obligated to hire translators. Illegal immigrants could not vote and were not encouraged to do so. Nobody dared to demonstrate in front of Americans while waving their countries’ flags, shouting that America is theirs and the old gringos should roll over and die, it is time for young Mexicans to rule. La Raza was not stoking hatred in the open and it did not have a voice in the White House.

We were not spending $25 per hour on translators to tutor illegal immigrants’ children in Spanish after school to read and do simple math. ESL was not touted everywhere. Legal immigrants made an effort to learn English and adapted to the laws and culture of America. They assimilated and became part of the American dream. We had fewer barrios and Latino gangs. The federal government enforced the borders.

The stakes are high today to put a stop to illegal immigration that is threatening the functioning of our orderly society. It is up to individual states to do so since the federal government has relinquished its duty to defend the borders. If we no longer have safe and secure borders and the Mexican government tries to dictate to us what constitutes America, do we still have sovereignty?

Arizona’s immigration law was immediately challenged in court. Conservatives cheered while liberals screamed racism in tune with the Department of Justice. The law did not violate anybody’s rights but reinforced the rules that the federal government should have enforced but failed to do. Arizona had become a war zone along its border with Mexico.

The 2010 Arizona law found that “there is a compelling interest in the cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws throughout all of Arizona.” The provisions of this act “are intended to work together to discourage and deter the unlawful entry and presence of aliens and economic activity by persons unlawfully present in the United States.” Immediately, all the liberal media denounced it as racist, profiling, and bigoted, and the Department of Justice filed suit against the state.

Alabama passed its immigration law in June 2011 and it was immediately opposed by the Hispanic lobby, La Raza (the race), LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), corrupt business interests, and the open-borders Justice Department.

Alabama’s immigration law is similar to Arizona’s law because it allows local law enforcement to ask for immigration papers during routine traffic stops.

Alabama further voids any contracts signed by illegal aliens, forbidding them from “mainstreaming” into communities. The law also forbids contracts between illegal aliens and any organization of the state government.

All incoming students must prove their immigration status before elementary and secondary schools can admit them. The state wants to know how much money is spent to educate illegal aliens.

The day the law went into effect, many classrooms were emptied as illegal aliens kept their children at home, citing a hostile learning environment. All American children, before each school year, must show proof of residence in order to attend in a particular district.

I am not sure Alabama will be able to overturn the 1981 policy upheld by the Supreme Court that requires all 50 states to provide free public education to illegal aliens. The Court ruled that “no substantial state interest” was proven by Texas when it tried to deny free public education to illegal aliens. Perhaps providing a figure of billions of dollars a year might persuade the court.

As liberals promoted the failed multiculturalism model from Europe, 87 percent of Americans believed that English should be the official language of the United States (Rasmussen Reports).

We are a nation of immigrants but we have followed the law and assimilated into this country, “one united people, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs…(Federalist Papers, John Jay)

When the influx was disproportionately from one area, laws were written to curtail it. The 1965 Immigration Act (Hart-Cellar Act) caused a surge of Latin American and Asian immigrants for decades.

The Hart-Cellar Act allowed more immigrants from third world countries and a separate quota for refugees. Residence was granted based on skill and family reunification.

The “Fast and Furious” scandal served as evidence to the corruption and lack of protection of our borders when drug cartels make frequent incursions into U.S. territory. The results can be deadly, U.S. law enforcement officers and innocent citizens falling victims during drug runs and battles over territory.

It is alleged that ATF illegally facilitated the transfer of thousands of guns to drug cartels in Mexico, with the knowledge of the Justice Department, in hopes that they would be able to trace the gang members through the U.S. registered guns.

The evidence seems to point to the Obama administration providing guns to Mexican drug lords with the intent of blaming American gun owners and the Second Amendment rights for violent crimes committed in Mexico.

The issues of immigration rest on a few simple facts that liberals ignore when they call illegal immigrants "undocumented workers:"

             It is illegal and a crime to cross the border of another country without proper visas and documentation.

• No right to automatic citizenship and the right to vote Democrat.
• Aliens fled from a third world country and from poverty, yet they want to bring it here  and change our voting trends to fit the Democrats nanny state agenda.
• Illegal immigrants are not entitled to any generous social welfare programs, free medical care, housing, and equal protection under the law on par with U.S. citizens.
• Illegal immigrants are taking jobs that unemployed Americans were previously doing
• Illegal immigrants are driving wages down.
• Immigrants who are here illegally have committed a crime that is punishable quite severely in their own countries.
• U.S. taxpayers should not provide free education, medical care, welfare, housing, and other social programs for illegal immigrants.

Our country is broke and hard-working Americans who pay taxes are tired of being the silent majority who pays the bills while liberals, the Democrat Party, and Washington are ignoring their voices. More states like Alabama and Arizona should adopt laws that check the status of immigrants in this country. We must restore law and order and take our borders back. Without borders, we are no longer a sovereign nation.

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh writes for Canada Free Press, Modern Conservative, and is a frequent radio commentator on Butler on Business, WAFS 1190 Atlanta, The Unsolicited Opinion on Republic Broadcasting Network, and The Business Roundtable, Silvio Canto Jr. of Dallas. She speaks on issues of economics, communism, education, and UN Agenda 21. 

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The historian Livy wrote about the Roman statesman, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who answered the call of duty to his country in a time of crisis.

In 458 BC, Cincinnatus was named dictator of Rome for six months to rescue a consular army surrounded by the Aequi on Mount Algidus. When duty called, he was working on his small farm. He accepted the request of the Senate to lead the Roman Army. He defeated the enemy in a single day and returned triumphantly to Rome. Cincinnatus maintained his power for fifteen days, long enough to return Rome to normalcy. He then resigned and went back to his farm.

Cincinnatus was admired for his lack of ambition although he was consul in 460 and 438 BC, and for his selfless patriotism. If you were called to duty to save our country, what would you do, what would be the first thing you would tackle in order to save our floundering economy? I asked random conservatives and libertarians, and developed their brief answers.

I would increase economic freedom by making it much easier to start a business. Current regulations are so arcane, vending, zoning, taxation, that it is hard to maintain or start a new business.

I would control immigration by putting troops at the border in addition to current border patrols. I would start by putting three divisions on the southern border, two infantry and one mechanized. The fence is not a good deterrent as many have proven that it can be easily escalated, cut through, or crawled underneath. I would assign the border control to both the federal and state governments. I would give states the right to confront illegal aliens.

I would reverse abortion laws since the demographics show that population birth rates in most western nations are below replacement values. Western civilizations would disappear without 2.1 babies per family. Sadly, a disproportionate number of black babies are being aborted in the U.S.

I would reinstate “don’t ask, don’t tell” because soldiers have not been consulted if openness increases or decreases troop morale. Liberals have decided for the majority.

I would reform the tax code to make it uniform and less burdensome on small business. I would prefer, however, to institute a flat tax. It works very well in several countries that are prospering economically.

I would repatriate all profits of large companies and make them pay tax on all their earnings overseas. I would audit all major Wall Street firms and particularly the Federal Reserve System because it does not answer to anybody. I would make the Fed prove that our gold reserves at Fort Knox are intact.

I would pass a budget amendment forcing Congress to pass a budget. It has been almost 900 days since the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a budget.

I would institute term limits for Congressmen and Congresswomen. To serve one’s country was not meant to be a life-long career of corruption, bribery, and theft, becoming rich at the trough of government. I would appoint a commission to identify all powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution and fight relentlessly to excise them from government.

I would reduce business tax rate to about 25 percent, eliminate deductions, and repeal most of the new regulations in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Act.

I would cut EPA’s solar expenditures and all regulations that are stifling economic growth and development and kill jobs in many sector industries, including mining, oil exploration, land use, and water use. Solar expenditures, as proven lately, are likely to bankrupt us. In spite of four highly touted solar panel manufacturers going out of business, four more Obama supported crony capitalist ventures in the solar panel industry have received $4.7 billion dollars for the advancement of his “green” industry agenda.

I would cut Social Security; eliminate the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its budget, including Medicare and Medicaid, which are in trouble financially.

“I would defund and repeal Obamacare” was the most popular choice of respondents. The monstrous 3,000 page bill that nobody read, nobody discussed, and Nancy Pelosi asked that be passed first before we knew what was in it, is the elephant in the closet that is already draining billions.

Doctors are busy implementing and establishing the bureaucracy required to run Obamacare. It has already resulted in unusual delays in treatment. None of the promises made by Obama turned out to be true so far.

Premium costs for most families have already gone up 9 percent to $15,073 in 2011, the largest increase since 2005. Single premiums have gone up 8 percent. People were shocked that their adult children premiums, no annual caps on benefits, and no copays for preventive care were not free, they added to the premium.

Health care premiums did not decrease by $2,500 per family as promised. According to Kaiser Family Foundation, “premiums increased significantly faster than workers’ wages (2.1%) and general inflation (3.2%).”

“If you like your current plan, you can keep it.” Many Americans, who can afford and like their current plan, will not be able to keep it. Fifty-six percent of employees will be able to keep their plans under the “grandfathered protection.” The Kaiser Family Foundation survey says, “Numerous firms responded that being grandfathered was administratively difficult and it would limit the firm’s flexibility in the future.”

“Small business tax credits would encourage employers to provide coverage.” “With that savings, employers may be able to cover an additional worker or hire that extra employee they’ve needed.” The Kaiser survey says that only “fifteen percent of non-offering small firms with 3-49 employees considered health insurance because of the tax credit.”

The 1,472 waivers given to crony employers and unions because they could not afford the premiums will expire in 2014. Mid- and large-size employers will have to provide “the essential benefit package” or pay a $2,000 fine. The fine is so small when compared to the premiums that middle and high earners will be forced into health exchanges and lower income workers into Medicaid.

Medicaid only pays 86 cents of every dollar, forcing doctors and hospitals to pass the cost to privately insured patients, driving up the cost of premiums for them. Obamacare will increase Medicaid enrollment by one third in 2014 and two thirds of the currently uninsured will be placed on Medicaid. The cost of all this Medicaid expansion will come from the higher private health insurance premiums.

Premiums will also go up because of the rising costs of healthcare. Americans spend, including out-of-pocket, $7,538 a year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. U.K., Norway, and Sweden spend $2,995. (Betsy McCaughey)

Respondents believed that SOX should be repealed. Sarbanes Oxley Act, passed July 2002, known as SOX, an act of corporate responsibility, to protect investors by “improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures, made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes,” was enacted after numerous scandals such as Enron and WorldCom. SOX does not apply to privately held corporations.

Supporters believe SOX improved the confidence of fund managers and investors in the veracity of corporate financial statements. Opponents argue that SOX introduced a very complex regulatory environment into the U.S. financial markets thus reducing America’s international competitiveness against foreign financial service providers.

The respondents were extremely knowledgeable and offered viable solution to our economic crises. No matter which president will replace Obama in 2012, his/her job will be extremely difficult to fix our disintegrating economy, which the Democrats and Obama’s misguided economic policies have devastated.

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Well, Occupy Wall Street is making its mark in cities all across America.

Little Obamavilles are sprouting up everywhere as the Left, driven in part by Tea-Party-envy and nostalgia for 1968, creates a new movement some have aptly named the Flea Party.

Memo to the Left:  It's been done before, and it's been done better.

However, in spite of the filth, profanity, class warfare, and even open anti-semitism expressed by some of the new Flea-Baggers, they have already earned Nancy Pelosi's endorsement as well as praise from one of Ahmadinejad's Generals.  Great start, Flea Partiers!

One of the Obama Regime's unintended gifts to America is that it has put Leftism on display, in full throb, for all of America to see.   With that in mind, I wish Occupy Wall Street a long life ... at least right up through November, 2012.

Granted, there are still many open questions about the Flea Party movement -- in particular, what are their core principles?   From the start, we've known that the Tea Party movement's three core principles are (1) Constitutionally limited government, (2) free markets, and (3) personal/fiscal responsibility.  But what about the Flea Party movement?  Beats me.

We know the Tea Party movement's foundation documents are the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers.  It's a rich heritage.  What are the foundation documents of the Flea Party?  Marx?  Engels?  Alinsky?  Ayers?  Obama?  I confess I have no idea.

For the time-being, I guess we'll have to count on humorists and cartoonists to figure out what the Flea Party is all about.  For example, see the Jimmy Kimmel video below and the Nate Beeler (Washington Examiner) cartoon below that.

Anyway, long live the Flea Party!  Do your thing!   Show us all what the Left is made of!

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