In the vein of Michelle Obama, today, for the first time in my life, I am embarrassed of my country.

Today, Obama will sign an executive order, rather than suggest legislation, granting federal benefits to same-sex partners of government employees.  This despite the fact that a majority of Americans believe it to be a lifestyle choice and immoral.  This effectively forces those who are opposed and offended by this choice to pay for this choice.  This all the while religion is forced out of the public arena because it might offend someone.

Between this and his extreme liberal abortion policies, he is engaging in the kind of policy that Rev. Jeremiah Wright would suggest gives God reason to condemn America.  Yet, Wright is only concerned with the Jews.  So, yes, I'm very disappointed and embarrassed of what used to be America.

America seems lost now.

Read more:
Ideally Conservative
Townhall.com
Fox News

The hate crimes legislation making it's way through Congress raises some serious questions about who, and what, should be protected and whose rights trump whose.  I feel this legislation creates a protected class of people.  These people have used smokescreens to blind the public and gain sympathy.  In actuality, though, they want acceptance and protection for their choice.

There is an article at Ideally Conservative which lifts these smokescreens.  First, this is not about love.  It never has been, it never will be.  No one cares who you love, and in fact, the more people you truly love, the better the world would be.  No, this is all about lust.

Second, this is solely about choice.  We all have choices to make, sometimes even if we don't realize it.  Some make the choice to follow the norm.  Some what to do otherwise and try to change the norm.

I hope you'll check out the article for more in depth thought on this subject.  Our nation's future depends on it.

Today, Sen. Arlen Specter (RINO-PA), announced that he is leaving the Republican Party when he seeks re-election in 2010.  Actually, he left the Republican Party a long time ago, he finally has the decency to make it official.  This RINO will not be missed by the core (read: conservatives) of the party, neither.

Read more on this topic by Jay Period at Ideally Conservative.

It seems we Conservatives will once again be fighting the evil of slavery.  President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Reid are trying to revive the old practice and dress it up in the clothes of Hitler's Youth.  GIVE and SERVE are two pieces of legislation Hitler would have been proud of.  Interesting, considering the left has been calling Bush a Hitler for years, and that slavery will make a comeback under this administration.

Read more at Ideally Conservative by JayPeriod.

Last week was quite a week.  There was plenty to report on and comment on.  Whether it was the continued judicial tyranny of North Carolina Judge Ned Mangum, a potential new law in Tennessee to punish teens for texting while driving, the Teleprompter-in-Chief or the AIG bonus tax, Conservatives had reason to scream.

Feel free to check out my take on each of them, and others, over at Ideally Conservative.

Well, judges are at it again.  Homeschooling, a favorite of liberal, nazi judges is being fought on another, less expected, battleground; North Carolina.  Judge Ned Mangum is the latest to attempt treason by destroying a parents rights.

Read more at Ideally Conservative.

During his campaign, Obama promised hope and change.  He's already done what he can to reduce our hope by telling us it may take a while before we can see improvement.  Actually, though, hope is hard to gauge.

So, what about change?  Has he brought us that?  Maybe he has brought some change, though some wonder if it's the right kind of change, but mostly there is no real change.  And that's not a good thing.

Read more.

Despite what we think or believe about Barak Obama, today truly marks an historic day.  Today, he becomes the first non-American to become President of the United States of America.  That, my friends, is historic.

Oh, and he's the first African American to become President. (Sorry, Bill!)

All this aside, I hope this becomes a day when we can finally put racial tension and anger behind us.  We are now the first nation in history to have someone from a minority group to be democratically elected to lead their nation.  For this to happen, it took a great number of whites to vote for him.  Even among those whites who did not vote for him, most did not do so because of his skin color, but because of his awful policies.  Sure, there will be those whites who truly hate him for his color, but let's be honest, there are blacks who truly hate whites for their skin color.  Racism, as I have stated before, is not reserved for only one race.

As Conservatives, we can now proceed in one of a couple of ways.  First, we can be bitter and do everything in our power to take this man down.  That, of course, would make us no better than the Reid's and Pelosi's who are so destructive to our country.  Second, we can go forward working to protect our nation from dangerous policies, realizing the man is separate from his policies, showing the nation how to respect someone you disagree with and how consumed with hate the Democrats are.

In either event, Conservatives need to regroup and prepare for 2012 so we do not have to endure a full eight years of these horrible policies.  We should not surrender nor roll over.  It is time to fight.

For this historic day, I am proud to be an American, showing the world no matter how evil they think we are, we are the best nation on Earth.

For the past 7 1/2 years, President Bush has kept us safe from terrorists.  He has kept them at bay, chasing them around the globe and fighting them on foreign soil.  He has kept the ones we've captured out of our country by keeping them at Gitmo.  We have taken steps, through things such as the Patriot Act and listening to phone calls of those who speak to terrorist, to keep them out of our country and from having any footing at all in our counrty.

Now, with most likely his first act, President-elect (PE) Obama is going to close Gitmo and bring many, if not all, of those terrorists into our country and give them their day in our courts.

These are people who have shot at our troops, planned attacks on our homeland and have no desire but to kill or be killed in the fight against freedom.  PE Obama feels that these are the people he wants to bring here and give them taxpayer funded trials and house them in prisons where they could potentially meet others who abhor American and our freedoms; thugs, rapists, child molesters and gang members.  He wants that to be his first act.

One thing is for sure, it will definitely set the tone for his Presidency.  He is willing to make his first act be their next act in trying to bring an end to America as we know it.  Of all the things he could do with his first official act, he wants this to be it.

Here is where the true danger of this election will rear its ugly head.  We now have a man in office who honestly thinks these people just need "justice" and understanding, then they'll go back home and be our friends.  They'll convince their friends to like us, as well.  This is either stupid or naive.  Or both.

Let the insanity begin.

What comes around, goes around.  For decades, the UAW has poured billions of dollars into elections to get Democrats elected into office.  No matter what Republicans offer, the UAW uses worker's union dues to fund the campaigns of their Democratic opponents.  Yesterday, the UAW was at the mercy of the Republicans to save their cans.

The UAW will no doubt use this as a rallying cry in the next election to get their workers to revolt against Republican candidates.  They will remind their workers of the vote that could potentially bring an end to their gravy train.  They'll ask those worker to put into office candidates who will go along with their status quo.

Would things have been any different, though, had the Republicans got on board and voted for the bailout?  Would the UAW have thanked them by donating to their campaigns or suggesting workers elect them?  Of course not!  They would have donated millions to their opponents and called them every name in the book.  In other words, nothing would have changed.

Maybe, the UAW should have stayed out of politics, all together.

By now, I'm sure you've heard all the hoopla over President-elect Obama's citizenship.  There have been more than a dozen lawsuits filed by citizens and former candidates to stop the Electoral College from finalizing the past election on the grounds that the President-elect has not provided iron-clad proof that he is a U.S. citizen.  To this point, both courts and the President-elect have ignored document requests and deadlines, most citing the lack of standing the plaintiffs have to bring the suit.

These suits will not stop.  Well into his term, more and more people will bring these suits to ask for proof.  There is only one way for Obama to put these suits, which his staff call "garbage," to rest; produce an official copy of his birth certificate.

Much like Sen. John Kerry four years ago, the production of an official document could put an end to the endless claims.  Yet, here we are four years later, and Kerry has not produced the requested documents, which he promised to do.  I fear the President-elect will follow the same way.

We live in a society in which we are innocent until proven guilty.  Yet, there is still the idea of, "what have you got to hide?"  If Obama is confident of his citizenship, he has nothing to fear in releasing the document.  If he indeed has no such document, don't we the people have a right to know?

So, what will happen?  Nothing, I suppose.  The courts have stated that it is the responsibility of the Congress and the Democrat Party to ensure he fulfills the Constitutional requirement of being a "natural born citizen."  In our current state, that's like asking the fox to watch the hen house.  In other words, nothing will be done and this will haunt us for the duration of his term.  History could very likely reveal that he was, in fact, the first unconstitutional President.

There have been a few things that have really gotten under my skin about President Bush.  One of those was his unabashed push for amnesty for illegal immigrants.  He wanted to give them a "path to citizenship" rather than a boot out of the country and permanent ban.  He clearly missed the will of the people on that one.

The other item has been his refusal to pardon two true American heroes; Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.  These two men were defending our nation from illegal activity and are now sitting in a federal prison while the drug-running illegal immigrant they were trying to stop has been given immunity and free medical care.  All the President has to do is pardon them and this extreme injustice will come to an end.

Instead, he makes light of the process and program by "pardoning" two turkeys the week of Thanksgiving.  He also took the time to pardon someone who shot a bald eagle, the very symbol of America.  Yet, he can't find it in himself to pardon two men that most of Americans, on both sides of the aisle, want out of jail.

I hope in his waning days, President Bush will do the right thing and listen to the American people and pardon these two great men.  Otherwise, it looks like he is at the behest of the Mexican government by leaving them to sit our their unjust prison sentences.  We'll know soon.

Bailouts are the rage of the season.  Banks want them.  Automakers want them.  Who knows how far they will go before someone says, "enough."

We keep hearing that these banks and companies are "too big" to let them fail.  We can't let GM go under or we may lose 3 million jobs.  We can't let AIG go under or we may lose retirement funds and insurance.  The list just goes on and on and on.  So, our government just keeps writing checks to the uber-large corporations, borrowing money to do it, and tell us it's for our own good.

The problem, though, is now we, the people, have become the largest group of enablers on the planet.  AIG keeps sending execs on junkets to exotic places and automakers keep paying union workers 6 and 7 times what a minimum wage earner makes, plus benefits that would make a Congressman jealous.  We're told we just have to suck it up, tighten the belts and understand that these companies can't change the way they do business.

If someone has a habit of getting drunk and sleeping in their own vomit, we understand that to continue to give them drinks is to contribute to that habit.  We do the "tough" thing and tell them to get over it, grow up and become a better person.  To fail to do so marks one as an enabler.  Enablers can be those who allow husbands to abuse their wives, allow drug users to continue to get high and destroy their lives, among other things.  Enablers need to be treated for their condition, just as the one they are enabling.

Yet, our government is throwing money at these poor, poor business models and not holding them accountable for changing.  GM never stood up to the union, now they are paying the price of out of control wages and benefits.  They don't want to suffer or change, so they threaten the government with massive unemployment if they are not given more money.  Rather than change their business model, they just want another "fix."

The same is happening in the banking and investment business.  They don't want to change the model of extreme compensation for execs, so they demand we, the taxpayers, foot the bill for billion dollar bonuses and compensation packages.  We are told that if they are not helped, they will fold and take the Dow with them.

And we enable them.

So, is socialism the only answer?  Will we have to accept government control and "share the wealth" plans to keep these people under control?  Will we need the government to pass laws to bring these businesses down to size?

I'm afraid that without some common sense and self-control among these businesses, we will have no other choice.  The unions will refuse to renegotiate contracts and accept "reasonable" compensation, they will be the end of their own paycheck.  If CEOs don't realize the very people they are threatening will be the ones that clamor for their heads on a platter, they are doomed to be thrown over the cliff of socialism and see their kingdoms fall.

I am a strong proponent of capitalism.  I believe the best way to encourage someone to work hard is to have a reward at the end of the road.  Socialism does nothing but promote class warfare and slothfulness.  Yet, I also believe that uncontrolled greed should be made to suffer the consequences of its actions.

If these companies won't control themselves, they should be allowed to suffer the consequences.  Will some innocent people suffer, as well?  Sure.  Are some of those "innocent" people part of the problem?  Maybe.  Will it kill our contry if GM or a few banks cease to exist?  No.

So, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.  New companies, stronger companies will arise and fill the void.  Maybe they will learn from the error of their predcessors.  Maybe those still in existance will learn those same lessons.  Surely if GM goes under, Ford, Chrysler and the union will not allow that same fate to befall themselves.  They will revamp and restructure and survive.

So, is socialism inevitable or the only answer.  God, I hope not.  Only time will tell, though.  If there are not some changes and if the enabling does not stop, we may not be able to stop it.

The election is over and the people have spoken; the Republican party is out of touch.  For the second straight national election, Republicans have been handed defeat and a message.  After the last election, they did not get the message, obviously, but will they get it now?  Where does the party go from here?

There has been much speculation since Tuesday night that there was a division within the McCain/Palin camp as to who was to blame for the loss.  It's clear that before he picked Palin, there was very little energy in the Republican campaign.  Palin, for whatever shortfalls she may have had, got the conservative base interested in the election.  She did not support amnesty, did not favor limiting free speech, and did not work to alienate conservatives just to win a few moderates.  The election was as close as it was because of her.

Clearly, the Republican Party must move backward to go forward.  They need to go all the way back to the Reagan era and collect themselves.  They must eagerly embrace conservative values, fiscally and socially, and put candidates up for election who embody these values.  They must remove from office and leadership those individuals who are the furthest from these values.  No more "Log Cabin" Republicans.  No more pork spending Republicans.  No pro-illegal Republicans.  No pro-choice Republicans.  We must be the true conservative party, or it is time to start a new one.

There are many faces on the horizon who can do just that.  Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal are just a couple that come to mind.  The Party must begin to promote and recognize them.  They must parade them out and give them serious face time.  They must tout their records and accomplishments.  There are others, too, that must be given the spotlight.  These individuals can show the American people that the Party has heard their message, loud and clear.

Finally, they must cast off those who do not fit this mold.  Those in congress who have helped the Left grow government to unimaginable size, those who feed at the pork trough must be left to fend for themselves.  The Party must put up REAL conservatives to battle against them and fund them.  They must invest in the defeat of these closet liberals and let the new crop know that those kinds of actions and votes will not be supported.

If the Republican Party will follow this direction, the country will respond, seeing that the message has been received.  If, though, they feel the need to trot out more middle of the road, big spending fat cats, I can't blame them for voting Democrat.  At least the Democrats let you just who they are.

So, what could be the worst thing that could happen if Obama were to win on Nov. 4?  Would it really mean the end of our nation?  Our world?  Would any of us really feel a difference?

I'd like to make a few predictions as to what to expect should the Obamessiah win.

First, socialism would finally finish off capitalism.  Obama, with the help of Pelosi and Reid, would begin an immediate shift in policy.  They would pass tax increases, which might eventually reach all the way down to those earning $40,000 to $50,000 (for starters).  While they would begin by taxing the "rich", to pay for the giveaways they desire, that would be a very fluid definition.  Things such as expanded higher education funding, nationalized healthcare and expanded tax credits for the poor would not stop at the very top.  As taxes go up, revenue goes down.  That's common economics.  Would they decide they couldn't afford everything they want to do?  No, they would just increase taxes on the way down until they can get what they want.  That is larger government and larger government control.  The by product will be to drive small businesses out of business and drive larger businesses out of the country.

Second, they will institute a national healthcare system that will eliminate the current model of private insurance companies.  They will regulate the costs and payments.  This will drive more and more doctors and nurses out of the field, as they will no longer be able to afford to pay their loans and it will no longer be desirable to be a doctor.  It just won't make sense.  Companies will end their offering of insurance, pushing employees to the federal policy.  To afford healthcare, just as in places like Canada and England, the government will have to make determinations on who should be eligible for care, using the "quality of life" criteria.  That means many won't get care because they just can't justify the cost for their lives.

Third, Obama, Pelosi and Reid will try to codify abortion into the Constitution.  They realize that at this point it is on shaky ground, at best.  There is no "right" to abortion in the Constitution and it would only take a plurality of Justices to overturn it, especially if the people will it.  They will also fight to overturn the ban on partial-birth abortions and to remove protections for the just born who might require a little help to make it.  They would use their national healthcare and the "quality of life" argument to end the lives of thousands of pre-mature or failed abortion babies.  Their assult on the unborn would escalate.  Eugenics would make a strong comeback.  Also, expect to pay for embryonic stem cell research, even though it has never produced any medical advances, as adult stem cell research has.

Fourth, hate crime laws would become stronger and stronger, making the Bible a book of "hate speech."  You need only look at your local college campus to see what hate speech codes bring about.  You can look at Canada, where pastors are sued and convicted of hate speech if they choose to preach from certain passages.  The First Amendment will take it's most brutal assault since McCain-Feingold.  It will erode until we don't recognize it at all.

Fifth, over time, Obama will appoint judges who will ensure that "gay marriage" becomes the next "right" found in the Constitution.  Even states who have passed amendments to their constitutions will find those laws ruled unconstitutional.  States will be forced to accept these unions, paying for healthcare and granting tax breaks to those their people do no desire to do so to.  Minister's who refuse to "marry" such couples will be brought to task under the previously mentioned hate crime laws.

Sixth, gun control laws will be stricter and stricter.  The appointment of activist judges will make this easier over time.  As time goes on, our Second Amendment rights will go the way of our First Amendment rights.  The Bill of Rights will become less and less relevant.  You could expect mini Waco's in your neighborhood.  It might even be your home, next.

Seventh, expect terrorist activity worldwide to explode.  With the appeasement attitudes that Obama holds, terrorists will be emboldened.  They will attack innocent people the world over.  They will attack our interests and those of our allies.  They will use that same attitude to force "tolerance" within our own country, aided by the hate speech laws, to force people here to accept their activity and laws.  In countries around the world, Muslim communities are being allowed to enact Sharia laws and override local courts where they contradict.  As they expand their communities, so will their influence.

Eighth, expect more and more energy policies to be "green" friendly.  Taxes on petroleum, coal and other forms of "dirty" energy to be used to extinguish them.  We will pay more at the pump and more on our utilities as they are taxed more to "punish" us for not being green.  The farce that is global warming will become the only accepted science, just like Darwinism is the only science allowed in the classroom.  Anyone who questions global warming will be labeled a quack and removed from the public square.  We will be forced to pay for research and technology which support this bad science.

Finally, expect our sovereignty to be sold out to the U.N.  Our role on the global scene will gradually fade and we will not be a major player.  We will see the U.N. garner a larger role and we will be forced to agree, fund and implement whatever they desire.  We will shrink on the world stage until we are no longer relevant.  With our economy shrinking due to overburdening taxation, it won't bother the rest of the world.  Those who have hated us for our freedoms and prosperity will gladly write our eulogy and will be glad to ridicule us and claim that they "American Experiment" did not work.

So, how dangerous will it be to elect Obama?  Not so bad; if you hate America, that is.

***This article has been reposted at Ideally Conservative , a new blog by JayPeriod.***