Interesting interview with Nat Hentoff. I’ve always liked Hentoff because he’s always been hard to categorize, politically. And always a fighter for individual rights and liberties… so it is quite telling that he’s alarmed of Obama’s actions.

And he’s not what one might call a “knee-jerk” ideologue. Note his comparision of Obama with Bush:

JW: Do you consider Obama to be worse than George W. Bush?

NH: Oh, much worse. Bush essentially came in with very little qualifications for presidency, not only in terms of his background but he lacked a certain amount of curiosity, and he depended entirely too much on people like Rumsfeld, Cheney and others. Bush was led astray and we were led astray. However, I never thought that Bush himself was, in any sense, “evil.” I am hesitant to say this about Obama. Obama is a bad man in terms of the Constitution. The irony is that Obama was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He would, most of all, know that what he is doing weakens the Constitution.

In fact, we have never had more invasions of privacy than we have now. The Fourth Amendment is on life support and the chief agent of that is the National Security Agency. The NSA has the capacity to keep track of everything we do on the phone and on the internet. Obama has done nothing about that. In fact, he has perpetuated it. He has absolutely no judicial supervision of all of this. So all in all, Obama is a disaster.

There is an interesting interview with Nat Hentoff at
http://www.rutherford.org/Oldspeak/Articles/Interviews/oldspeak-Hentoff_2009.html

It begins: “I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had.” – Nat Hentoff

I didn’t turn to the government beyond unemployment assistance…I went to local charities as they do far more efficiently than the government ever can. Addtionally, I actually get treated as a person…something that Maryland just can’t do. I would dearly love to work in someone’s shop building cabinets, but I think that industry is dead…

No, not the federal government or even local government. Charity is best handled by private charities, religious charities, or individuals. The feds are too big, too impersonal, too detached, too easy to scam. Local charities are most likely to get the help where it needs to go and to end it when it is no longer needed.

Stop by any local charitable organization. Look in to what they offer and what connections they have to other charitable organizations. I think you’ll find a plethora of organizations willing to give a hand up to those who are willing to pull themselves up with the help offered. If people have drug or alcohol problems, they have to get clean before anyone can help them. AA and other organizations are there to help them. There is no dearth of charity in this country. There are too many people who are not ready to exert the effort necessary to help themselves.

I Stand For Freedom 4 nights week at my Freedom Corners in MD and PA displaying signs to provoke Americans to face what is happening to our country. To date, the street active members of the Patriots Corner Club have not had any serious situations; yes, we have been called everything under the sun, but so far the cowards will not face us. However, if I am attacked, as was Mr. Gladney in St. Louis County, they will pay a price unless they put me down. In Germany few people reacted since it was not their group that was been attacked as in Pastor Martin Niemé¶ller’s poem, “They first came for the ____, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a ____, then they came for the . . . ” I know Americans are apathetic; we have 8 or 10 active members out of out 146 in the club, but a spark can set off something the government did not intend.

On December 1, I was with my Navy Jack, DONT TREAD ON ME flag, at Capitol and 1st Streets on the east side of the Capital. I began a Stand at 7:30 while waiting for the expected TEA Party people to show up for a rally at the near by Senate office buildings. I was surrounded by the Capitol police after 2 1/2 hours of my presence there, just after the rally meeting time had passed. The police assured me I was legal, but kept asking me questions about why I was there and how many I was meeting. Just suppose that the bus loads of people that I was expecting, but which didn’t show, actually did, saw I was being “harassed” and surrounded the police, who in turn called in reinforcements. Since a TEA Party group had sponsored the event I was waiting for, one could assume that tweets, text messages, pictures and the like would go out about the situation and how it developed. As in most situations like that, something could easily happen to provoke the people or the police and a “riot” could break out. That would go out via the Internet and a response like the 1999 Tennessee Tax Revolt could start and expand since there is a lot of frustration now over Congress ignoring the will of the people. If that occurred, that national apathy would evaporate immediately, in my opinion. We do not take too kindly to government running roughshod over our freedoms and constitutional rights. Maybe we will lose our freedoms by an unrecognized thousand cuts against us, but I hope not.

You can join us at patriotscornerclub.ning.com for ideas and support on what you can do between TEA Parties; we are taking back out nation . . . one corner at a time.

Bingo. Give that lady a cigar.

This is why they’re ramming as much legislation through as fast as possible.

Here in Loudoun County VA, the Democrat majority on our Board of Supervisors just did the same with environmental legislation. Long story short, they turned a small federal grant into a 30 year plan complete with mandates for conservation and all. They hired a consultant for $250,000 to write a monstrosity of a bill. A bunch of us objected at the public hearing, but it did no good.

We’ll fight tooth and nail to vote them out in 2011, just as we are the Dems in Congress next year and BHO himself in 2012.

Chinese protocol officials objected to Obama’s presence in the meeting, according to a senior administration official, who said that the president didn’t want the leaders negotiating in secret.”

So, he burst in on their meeting, unannounced and uninvited, and made three more “friends” for the USA.

This sounds like a scene from The Black Adder, but with none of the comedy.

From this one astounding fiasco we can surmise that the leaders of the world have recognized that a realignment of the major powers has taken place and the USA is now nothing more than second tier, if that. Nothing good will come from this.

Here’s an excellent New York Post article that makes that point very well. Its actually from a former Obama supporter, Michael Goodwin, who has come to have a change of heart about Obama. He says he now fears for his country.

(On the positive side, I beleive there are many former Obama supporters who, like Goodwin, have also changes their minds.)

Great quote:

President Obama, for whom I voted because I believed he was the best choice available, is a profound disappointment. I now regard his campaign as a sly bait-and-switch operation, promising one thing and delivering another. Shame on me.

Equally surprising, he has become an insufferable bore. The grace notes and charm have vanished, with peevishness and petty spite his default emotions. His rhetorical gifts now serve his loathsome habit of fear-mongering.