Monday, January 25, 2010

Mr. Obama - Pants on the ground, lookin like a fool, pants on the ground





Opinion 1.0

They just don't get it... Even after the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, they stiil don't understand what the American people want. Part of the problem is, I don't believe Obama has ever been exposed to conservatives. Look at his past, supposedly born in Hawaii, spent a lot of his childhood overseas, attended Harvard University, taught at the University of Chicago, Chicago community organizer, 5 minute senator and then, to our demise, President. He surrounds himself with left leaning liberals bordering on socialism. Has the President ever owned a business? Been responsible for a payroll? Or has he always been on someone else's payroll? Spending other people's money? It must be devastating for him to observe the country revolting and rejecting his socialistic policies. How's that hope and change working out for you? I guess his advisors tell him what he wants to hear. Over the weekend, Obama's minions were on the Sunday morning talk show circuit. Three people, three different stories. Valerie Jarrett said the stimulus had created thousands and thousands of jobs. David Axelrod said two million jobs and Robert Gibbs said one and one half million jobs. Do you think they talk or maybe huddle before they go out and propagandize their message. They look like fools, however, the real issue is the administration appears to be in total disarray and incoherent. I heard the "anointed one" speaking to ABC's George Stephanopolous and he had the gall to say that the American citizens were unhappy not with Obama and the last year or two, but, they were mad about the past eight years under the Bush administration. Clueless is the only word that comes to mind. The elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts should be a major wake up call for the Obama administration. Do the democrats and Obama realize the democrats had a majority after the 2006 elections. Bush doesn't create legislation. Obama sycophants are out there saying that the American people want healthcare reform in it's current form. That couldn't be further from the truth. Americans want logical and intelligent healthcare reform, not government run healthcare. If they try to back door the healthcare reform bill, the American people will rise up and we will make the Boston Tea Party look like Bridge Club. The American people have spoke, and we don't want it. WE WANT JOBS! They can distort the unemployment numbers all they want, but we know the economy is still in the crapper. Jobs, home sales, businesses closings and the lack of focus in the White House and congress. I am so excited about the midterms in November. There are going to be so many surprises in 2010. As I've said before, I belong to many organizations. All of them have the same message, take back America. The other issue is the out-of-control spending. The deficit has tripled since the Bush years. ( I bet you take Bush back now!) They need to stop spending our grandkids' money. I hope this isn't a socialistic plan to bring down the country. This isn't the hope and change we wanted. The arrogance of this administration is unprecedented. Even Bill "Bubba" Clinton realized in 1994 that he had to come around and become a little more centrist after the republican takeover, and put Hillary in her place. (Monica was happy about that.) One of two scenarios will emerge. Obama will concede healthcare and actually spend his time working on the economy and sway towards central politics, OR he will show his true colors (red) and come out of the closet and show that he is a "progressive radical."  Hillary Clinton and other democrats have referred to themselves as "progressives." Enough said. Our founding fathers did not take into account that we would elect a socialist President. Take a look at some of the Obama czars. Anita Dunn, Van Jones, Cass Sunstein, Mark Lloyd and others who speak of comunist leaders, mass murderers with respect and admiration. Of course, the czars did not have to go through congressional vetting like regular appointees. In example, Obama's choice for TSA chief, Errol Southers, withdraw because of skeletons in his closet. Imagine if Van Jones or Anita Dunn was sitting in front of a congressional committee. They wouldn't make to the third day of questioning. In closing, whatever this administration does, we, the American people will not give an inch. We will oppose wahtever is not in our best interest and way of life. We are plenipotentiary in our patriotic beliefs. "Mr. President, if you want a fight, you will get one times ten."

Liar, Liar, pants on fire:



President's word of the week:
Populist: A politician who only advocates policies that are popular.


American Rising Video-An open letter to democrats:



Green Piece:
Glacier scientist: I knew data hadn't been verified



By David Rose



Last updated at 12:54 AM on 24th January 2010

The scientist behind the bogus claim in a Nobel Prize-winning UN report that Himalayan glaciers will have melted by 2035 last night admitted it was included purely to put political pressure on world leaders.


Dr Murari Lal also said he was well aware the statement, in the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), did not rest on peer-reviewed scientific research.


In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Dr Lal, the co-ordinating lead author of the report’s chapter on Asia, said: ‘It related to several countries in this region and their water sources. We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.


‘It had importance for the region, so we thought we should put it in.’


Chilling error: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change wrongly asserted that glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035


Dr Lal’s admission will only add to the mounting furore over the melting glaciers assertion, which the IPCC

Was last week forced to withdraw because it has no scientific foundation.


According to the IPCC’s statement of principles, its role is ‘to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis, scientific, technical and socio-economic information – IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy’.


The claim that Himalayan glaciers are set to disappear by 2035 rests on two 1999 magazine interviews with glaciologist Syed Hasnain, which were then recycled without any further investigation in a 2005 report by the environmental campaign group WWF.


It was this report that Dr Lal and his team cited as their source.


The WWF article also contained a basic error in its arithmetic. A claim that one glacier was retreating at the alarming rate of 134 metres a year should in fact have said 23 metres – the authors had divided the total loss measured over 121 years by 21, not 121.


Last Friday, the WWF website posted a humiliating statement recognising the claim as ‘unsound’, and saying it ‘regrets any confusion caused’.


Dr Lal said: ‘We knew the WWF report with the 2035 date was “grey literature” [material not published in a peer-reviewed journal]. But it was never picked up by any of the authors in our working group, nor by any of the more than 500 external reviewers, by the governments to which it was sent, or by the final IPCC review editors.’


In fact, the 2035 melting date seems to have been plucked from thin air.


Professor Graham Cogley, a glacier expert at Trent University in Canada, who began to raise doubts in scientific circles last year, said the claim multiplies the rate at which glaciers have been seen to melt by a factor of about 25.


‘My educated guess is that there will be somewhat less ice in 2035 than there is now,’ he said.


Forced to apologise: Chairman of the IPCC Raj Pachauri


‘But there is no way the glaciers will be close to disappearing. It doesn’t seem to me that exaggerating the problem’s seriousness is going to help solve it.’


One of the problems bedevilling Himalayan glacier research is a lack of reliable data. But an authoritative report published last November by the Indian government said: ‘Himalayan glaciers have not in any way exhibited, especially in recent years, an abnormal annual retreat.’



When this report was issued, Raj Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, denounced it as ‘voodoo science’.


Having been forced to apologise over the 2035 claim, Dr Pachauri blamed Dr Lal, saying his team had failed to apply IPCC procedures.


It was an accusation rebutted angrily by Dr Lal. ‘We as authors followed them to the letter,’ he said. ‘Had we received information that undermined the claim, we would have included it.’


However, an analysis of those 500-plus formal review comments, to be published tomorrow by the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the new body founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, suggests that when reviewers did raise issues that called the claim into question, Dr Lal and his colleagues simply ignored them.


For example, Hayley Fowler of Newcastle University, suggested that their draft did not mention that Himalayan glaciers in the Karakoram range are growing rapidly, citing a paper published in the influential journal Nature.


In their response, the IPCC authors said, bizarrely, that they were ‘unable to get hold of the suggested references’, but would ‘consider’ this in their final version. They failed to do so.


The Japanese government commented that the draft did not clarify what it meant by stating that the likelihood of the glaciers disappearing by 2035 was ‘very high’. ‘What is the confidence level?’ it asked.


The authors’ response said ‘appropriate revisions and editing made’. But the final version was identical to their draft.


Last week, Professor Georg Kaser, a glacier expert from Austria, who was lead author of a different chapter in the IPCC report, said when he became aware of the 2035 claim a few months before the report was published, he wrote to Dr Lal, urging him to withdraw it as patently untrue.


Dr Lal claimed he never received this letter. ‘He didn’t contact me or any of the other authors of the chapter,’ he said.


The damage to the IPCC’s reputation, already tarnished by last year’s ‘Warmergate’ leaked email scandal, is likely to be considerable.


Benny Peiser, the GWPF’s director, said the affair suggested the IPCC review process was ‘skewed by a bias towards alarmist assessments’.


Environmentalist Alton Byers said the panel’s credibility had been damaged. ‘They’ve done sloppy work,’ he said. ‘We need better research on the ground, not unreliable predictions derived from computer models.’


Last night, Dr Pachauri defended the IPCC, saying it was wrong to generalise based on a single mistake. ‘Our procedure is robust,’ he added.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html#ixzz0daFosxiB

Pew Research:





Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

By James Rosen

FOXNews.com

The Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a prominent Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

Sunday: U.S. Army soldiers patrol inside Pech Valley, Kunar province, in northeastern Afghanistan. Private consultants Checchi & Company won a no-bid contract from the Obama administration to 'train the next generation of legal professionals' in Afghanistan. (AP)

Despite President Obama's long history of criticizing the Bush administration for "sweetheart deals" with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.

The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan.

A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site says Checchi & Company will "train the next generation of legal professionals" throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby "develop the capacity of Afghanistan's justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair."

The legality of the arrangement as a "sole source," or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. "They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year," a source familiar with the federal contracting process told Fox News.

"That's kind of weird," said another source, who has worked on "rule of law" issues in both Afghanistan and Iraq, about the no-bid contract to Checchi & Company. "There's lots of companies and non-governmental organizations that do this sort of work."

"I think the administration should explain what the decision was based on, and why a no-bid contract was given in this case, particularly given that Mr. Obama came in on a pledge of 'no more no-bid contracts,'" said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

"There's really no explanation of why they had to make an exception in this case. And based on the facts before us, it doesn't appear that there was a need for an exception. It's not as if this was something urgently needed today; they couldn't have taken the time to get the bids, and make sure that American people were getting the best value," she added.

Contacted by Fox News, Checchi confirmed that his company had indeed received the nearly $25 million contract but declined to say why it had been awarded on a no-bid basis, referring a reporter to USAID.

Asked if he or his firm had been aware that the contract was awarded without competitive bids, Checchi replied: "After it was awarded to us, sure. Before, we had no idea."

He declined to answer further questions, however, and again referred Fox News to USAID, saying: "I don't want to speak for the U.S. government."

Joseph A. Fredericks, director of public information at USAID, told Fox News the Checchi deal was actually a renewal of an existing contract, awarded in 2004 by the Bush administration after a competitive bid process. "As the incumbent," Fredericks wrote in an e-mail Monday, "Checchi was rewarded a renewed contract to allow for work on the ground to continue."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Fox News' reporting on the no-bid contract in this case "disturbed" him.

Issa has written to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah requesting that the agency "produce all documents related to the Checchi contract" on or before Feb. 5. Citing the waiver that enabled USAID to award the contract on a no-bid basis, Issa noted that the exemption was intended to speed up the provision of services in a crisis environment.

Yet "on its face," wrote Issa to Shah, "the consulting contract awarded to Checchi to support the Afghan justice system does not appear to be so urgent or attendant to an immediate need so as to justify such a waiver."

Presented with Fredericks's explanation -- that the Checchi contract was extended, this time on a no-bid basis, in order to "allow for work on the ground to continue" -- Issa was undeterred in his determination to investigate the matter.

"It's hard to say that this organization (Checchi and Company) has done such a great job of bringing the justice system in Afghanistan up to snuff that they should somehow not have to go through a competitive bidding process," Issa said.

Likewise, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, told Fox News she, too, is seeking answers about the Checchi contract. "Sen. McCaskill is actively looking into this situation," said Maria Speiser, a spokeswoman for the senator. "She has posed questions to USAID about the situation and is pursuing full answers. If she doesn't get answers, she'll be ready to take action."

Corporate rivals of Checchi were reluctant to speak on the record about the no-bid contract awarded to his firm because they feared possible retribution by the Obama administration in the awarding of future contracts.
"We don't want to be blackballed," said the managing partner of a consulting firm that has won similar contracts. "You've got to be careful. We're dealing here with people and offices that we depend on for our business."

Still, the rival executive confirmed that open bidding on USAID's lucrative Afghanistan "rule of law" contract was abruptly revoked by the agency earlier this year.

t's a mystery to us," the managing partner said. "We were going to bid on it. The solicitation (for bids) got pulled back, and we do not know why. We may never know why. These are things that we, as companies doing business with the government, have to put up with."

As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding.

I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all," the senator told a Grand Rapids audience on Oct. 2. "The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I'm in the White House."

Those remarks echoed an earlier occasion, during a candidates' debate in Austin, Texas on Feb. 21, when Mr. Obama vowed to upgrade the government's online databases listing federal contracts.

"If (the American people) see a bridge to nowhere being built, they know where it's going and who sponsored it," he said to audience laughter, "and if they see a no-bid contract going to Halliburton, they can check that out too."

Less than two months after he was sworn into office, President Obama signed a memorandum that he claimed would "dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts across the entire government."

Flanked by aides and lawmakers at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 4, Obama vowed to "end unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus contracts," adding: "In some cases, contracts are awarded without competition....And that's completely unacceptable."

The March 4 memorandum directed the Office of Management and Budget to "maximize the use of full and open competition" in the awarding of federal contracts.

Federal campaign records show Checchi has been a frequent contributor to liberal and Democratic causes and candidates in recent years, including to Obama's presidential campaign.

The records show Checchi has given at least $4,400 to Obama dating back to March 2007, close to the maximum amount allowed. The contractor has also made donations to various arms of the Democratic National Committee, to liberal activist groups like MoveOn.org and ActBlue, and to other party politicians like Sen. John F. Kerry, former presidential candidate John Edwards and former Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont.

Sources confirmed to Fox News that Checchi & Company is but one of a number of private firms capable of performing the work in Afghanistan for which USAID retained it.

For example, DPK Consulting, based in San Francisco and with offices in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, states on its website that it has contracted with USAID and other federal agencies on more than 600 projects involving "governance and institutional development" across five continents.

Among DPK's most recent projects are the establishment of a new public prosecutor's office in Jenin, in the troubled West Bank area of the Palestinian Authority, and the improvement of court facilities in the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia. Similarly, BlueLaw International, based in Virginia, was awarded a $100 million contract by the State Department in April 2008 to strengthen the "rule of law" in Iraq.

Although Obama suggested in his remarks on March 4 that he hoped particularly to address problems associated with defense contracting, an Associated Press analysis last July found that the Defense Department frequently awards no-bid contracts under the aegis of the $787 billion stimulus program, and often at higher expense to U.S. taxpayers.

According to The AP, more than $242 million in federal contracts, or roughly a quarter of the Pentagon's contract stimulus spending, was awarded through no-bid contracts. And while procurement officers say competitive bidding can actually cost the taxpayers more -- because it involves delays and can thereby subject pricing for services and equipment to inflation -- the AP analysis found that defense-related stimulus contracts awarded after competitive bidding saved the Pentagon $34 million, compared with $4.4 million when no bidding was involved.

Figures kept by OMB Watch, a non-profit research and advocacy group that tracks federal spending, show that no-bid contracts have been common under administrations controlled by both parties.

During fiscal years 2000 and 2001, for example, when Bill Clinton was president, as much as $139.2 billion in federal contracts was awarded without competitive bidding. The OMB Watch figures show that the practice appears to have accelerated sharply during the Bush administration, but the figures are not adjusted for inflation.

I wish I was a friend of Barry's.

Interesting Tidbits:

  • Obama administration hires David Plouffe as an advisor to help with the economy. Plouffe helped with the Obama campaign. He has written a book about the experience. Is this an acknowledgement of failure by the Obama administration?
  • No Go Beau-Beau Biden has decided not to run for his father's senate seat in Delaware. Maybe he realizes the tide is turning.
  • Obama Uses Teleprompters During Speech At Elementary School: Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Graham Road Elementary School in Falls Church, Va.
Quote du jour:
"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Writings of Our Founding Fathers
Federalist Papers



Federalist No. 6

Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States

For the Independent Journal.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York:

THE three last numbers of this paper have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different and, perhaps, still more alarming kind--those which will in all probability flow from dissensions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly anticipated; but they deserve a more particular and more full investigation.

A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt that, if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent, unconnected sovereignties in the same neighborhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.

The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society. Of this description are the love of power or the desire of pre-eminence and dominion--the jealousy of power, or the desire of equality and safety. There are others which have a more circumscribed though an equally operative influence within their spheres. Such are the rivalships and competitions of commerce between commercial nations. And there are others, not less numerous than either of the former, which take their origin entirely in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes, and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which they are members. Men of this class, whether the favorites of a king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquillity to personal advantage or personal gratification.

The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a prostitute, [1] at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the SAMNIANS. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the MEGARENSIANS, [2] another nation of Greece, or to avoid a prosecution with which he was threatened as an accomplice of a supposed theft of the statuary Phidias, [3] or to get rid of the accusations prepared to be brought against him for dissipating the funds of the state in the purchase of popularity, [4] or from a combination of all these causes, was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war, distinguished in the Grecian annals by the name of the PELOPONNESIAN war; which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian commonwealth.

The ambitious cardinal, who was prime minister to Henry VIII., permitting his vanity to aspire to the triple crown, [5] entertained hopes of succeeding in the acquisition of that splendid prize by the influence of the Emperor Charles V. To secure the favor and interest of this enterprising and powerful monarch, he precipitated England into a war with France, contrary to the plainest dictates of policy, and at the hazard of the safety and independence, as well of the kingdom over which he presided by his counsels, as of Europe in general. For if there ever was a sovereign who bid fair to realize the project of universal monarchy, it was the Emperor Charles V., of whose intrigues Wolsey was at once the instrument and the dupe.

The influence which the bigotry of one female, [6] the petulance of another, [7] and the cabals of a third, [8] had in the contemporary policy, ferments, and pacifications, of a considerable part of Europe, are topics that have been too often descanted upon not to be generally known.

To multiply examples of the agency of personal considerations in the production of great national events, either foreign or domestic, according to their direction, would be an unnecessary waste of time. Those who have but a superficial acquaintance with the sources from which they are to be drawn, will themselves recollect a variety of instances; and those who have a tolerable knowledge of human nature will not stand in need of such lights to form their opinion either of the reality or extent of that agency. Perhaps, however, a reference, tending to illustrate the general principle, may with propriety be made to a case which has lately happened among ourselves. If Shays had not been a DESPERATE DEBTOR, it is much to be doubted whether Massachusetts would have been plunged into a civil war.

But notwithstanding the concurring testimony of experience, in this particular, there are still to be found visionary or designing men, who stand ready to advocate the paradox of perpetual peace between the States, though dismembered and alienated from each other. The genius of republics (say they) is pacific; the spirit of commerce has a tendency to soften the manners of men, and to extinguish those inflammable humors which have so often kindled into wars. Commercial republics, like ours, will never be disposed to waste themselves in ruinous contentions with each other. They will be governed by mutual interest, and will cultivate a spirit of mutual amity and concord.

Is it not (we may ask these projectors in politics) the true interest of all nations to cultivate the same benevolent and philosophic spirit? If this be their true interest, have they in fact pursued it? Has it not, on the contrary, invariably been found that momentary passions, and immediate interest, have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility or justice? Have republics in practice been less addicted to war than monarchies? Are not the former administered by MEN as well as the latter? Are there not aversions, predilections, rivalships, and desires of unjust acquisitions, that affect nations as well as kings? Are not popular assemblies frequently subject to the impulses of rage, resentment, jealousy, avarice, and of other irregular and violent propensities? Is it not well known that their determinations are often governed by a few individuals in whom they place confidence, and are, of course, liable to be tinctured by the passions and views of those individuals? Has commerce hitherto done anything more than change the objects of war? Is not the love of wealth as domineering and enterprising a passion as that of power or glory? Have there not been as many wars founded upon commercial motives since that has become the prevailing system of nations, as were before occasioned by the cupidity of territory or dominion? Has not the spirit of commerce, in many instances, administered new incentives to the appetite, both for the one and for the other? Let experience, the least fallible guide of human opinions, be appealed to for an answer to these inquiries.

Sparta, Athens, Rome, and Carthage were all republics; two of them, Athens and Carthage, of the commercial kind. Yet were they as often engaged in wars, offensive and defensive, as the neighboring monarchies of the same times. Sparta was little better than a wellregulated camp; and Rome was never sated of carnage and conquest.

Carthage, though a commercial republic, was the aggressor in the very war that ended in her destruction. Hannibal had carried her arms into the heart of Italy and to the gates of Rome, before Scipio, in turn, gave him an overthrow in the territories of Carthage, and made a conquest of the commonwealth.

Venice, in later times, figured more than once in wars of ambition, till, becoming an object to the other Italian states, Pope Julius II. found means to accomplish that formidable league, [9] which gave a deadly blow to the power and pride of this haughty republic.

The provinces of Holland, till they were overwhelmed in debts and taxes, took a leading and conspicuous part in the wars of Europe. They had furious contests with England for the dominion of the sea, and were among the most persevering and most implacable of the opponents of Louis XIV.

In the government of Britain the representatives of the people compose one branch of the national legislature. Commerce has been for ages the predominant pursuit of that country. Few nations, nevertheless, have been more frequently engaged in war; and the wars in which that kingdom has been engaged have, in numerous instances, proceeded from the people.

There have been, if I may so express it, almost as many popular as royal wars. The cries of the nation and the importunities of their representatives have, upon various occasions, dragged their monarchs into war, or continued them in it, contrary to their inclinations, and sometimes contrary to the real interests of the State. In that memorable struggle for superiority between the rival houses of AUSTRIA and BOURBON, which so long kept Europe in a flame, it is well known that the antipathies of the English against the French, seconding the ambition, or rather the avarice, of a favorite leader, [10] protracted the war beyond the limits marked out by sound policy, and for a considerable time in opposition to the views of the court.

The wars of these two last-mentioned nations have in a great measure grown out of commercial considerations,--the desire of supplanting and the fear of being supplanted, either in particular branches of traffic or in the general advantages of trade and navigation.

From this summary of what has taken place in other countries, whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what reason can we have to confide in those reveries which would seduce us into an expectation of peace and cordiality between the members of the present confederacy, in a state of separation? Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?

Let the point of extreme depression to which our national dignity and credit have sunk, let the inconveniences felt everywhere from a lax and ill administration of government, let the revolt of a part of the State of North Carolina, the late menacing disturbances in Pennsylvania, and the actual insurrections and rebellions in Massachusetts, declare--!

So far is the general sense of mankind from corresponding with the tenets of those who endeavor to lull asleep our apprehensions of discord and hostility between the States, in the event of disunion, that it has from long observation of the progress of society become a sort of axiom in politics, that vicinity or nearness of situation, constitutes nations natural enemies. An intelligent writer expresses himself on this subject to this effect: "NEIGHBORING NATIONS (says he) are naturally enemies of each other unless their common weakness forces them to league in a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC, and their constitution prevents the differences that neighborhood occasions, extinguishing that secret jealousy which disposes all states to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their neighbors." [11] This passage, at the same time, points out the EVIL and suggests the REMEDY.

PUBLIUS.

References:
http://www.hotair.com/
http://www.weeklystandard.com/
http://www.thehill.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.americanthinker.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://www.foxnews.com/
http://www.quotationspage.com/
http://www.youtube.com/
http://www.msnbc.com/
http://www.wnd.com/
http://www.snopes.com/

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