Cursing, spitting, shoving, vandalism and death threats are pervading the political landscape. But who will relieve America of its political indigestion and anger?

I’ve seen a dozen U.S. presidents during my lifetime, but rarely have I seen the type of frustration and disdain being shown by many Americans in the first year of this presidency. And rather than seek to simmer that national heat, the president himself continues to taunt, demonize and socially quarantine opposition.

Why are Americans so frustrated? Not merely because of petty partisan politics. And not even solely because of the ginormous health-care bill that will costs taxpayers trillions. I believe the majority are disappointed with Washington because they voted for change, but are getting more of the same: more big government, more bureaucratic bullying, more overreaching federal intrusion and control, more pet projects, more taxes, more national debt, etc.

What’s so disheartening about America’s present political environment is that those in Washington are truly convinced that more and bigger government is America’s primary solution for recovery, future growth and security. President Obama even declared early in his presidency that “only government” is our savior.

Our founders had a far better solution than government. And it’s probably a good time, during this peak of citizens’ frustration (and also being Christendom’s Holy Week), to remind Americans that, though our founders initiated our government, they didn’t expect it to usher in any form of utopia. As proud as they were about their republic, their hope was not in government, but in God. For what? Most of the things that people today often look to government for: life, liberty, happiness, salvation, decency, civility, morality, honesty, restraint, equity of power and future hope, to name a few. Tragically, government has usurped God’s role in our republic and Americans’ lives.

The best tea-party signs ever — compiled in a striking book with foreword by Chuck Norris: “Don’t Tread on US! Signs of a 21st Century Political Awakening”

David Kupelian, in his new insightful treatise on what truly lurks behind the troubles in government and America, “How Evil Works,” notes that we’ve been “seduced” to believe that “‘the self-evident truths’ the founders relied upon are just outdated and dangerous myths.” “No wonder,” Kupelian says, “millions of Americans have gradually been demoralized into depending upon government to solve all of their problems, fueling today’s uncontrolled, cancer-like growth in government.”

But if our government and even public schools won’t remind Americans of our godly heritage (and hence the way out of this national mess), who will? The answer: we patriots. The least we can do is to remember and recall to others the Creator’s place in our republic, in hope of reawakening just one more American, especially during this Easter week.

It is no coincidence that the Declaration of Independence begins with a spiritual emphasis:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men.

For America’s founders, God and government were intricately linked. As Thomas Paine echoed one year earlier, in 1775, “Spiritual freedom is the root of political freedom. … As the union between spiritual freedom and political liberty seems nearly inseparable, it is our duty to defend both” (“Thoughts on Defensive War”).

For even the framers of our Constitution, which is often hailed by critics as godless, God was behind its monumental words. James Madison spoke for most, when he said, “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution” (“Federalist No. 37″).

To our founders, God was the source of our human rights, which put limits on government power. Most of all, God was (and should be) the ultimate agent for national renewal. We are dreaming if we think we can correct the ills in ourselves, our government or our society without His aid.

Ben Franklin was particularly eloquent on this very point, as he addressed those who attended the Constitutional Convention:

In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us, who were engaged in the struggle, must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, That God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? (“Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin,” p. 389)

Those are the questions not only every politician must answer, but every American, who is trying to resurrect a broken life, marriage, family, home or country: “And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need its assistance? … And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?”

If Franklin, a presumed deist, could believe that “God governs in the affairs of men,” it is certain that all or nearly all of the Founding Fathers did as well. That belief shaped our country, it is part of our heritage, and I do not believe that we can neglect or repudiate that belief – that we are responsible to God – without endangering our future. As Franklin declared, the American empire cannot rise or resurrect without his aid. That is also why an entire chapter in my new paperback expanded version of “Black Belt Patriotism” is devoted to the role God played in the founding of our republic and must play in America’s reawakening.

Friends, I am a patriot and an optimist at heart. I, as with many of you, believe that we can become a great nation again, known more for who we are than what we have. I believe in the resurrection of America. But that’s not going to happen by traveling down the same road we’ve been on.

If America has lost its way, its heart, its moral compass, the answer is to return to the old path, the path followed by our founders who put God first, trusting in Him – not big government – to be our salvation. In fact, the most important action you and I can take is to do that in our own lives: to put God first and raise up a new generation of decent, law-abiding, people-loving and God-fearing citizens.

That is why John Witherspoon, a founder and signer of the Declaration of Independence, urged Americans: “He is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who set himself with the greatest firmness to bear down on profanity and immorality of every kind. Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy to his country.”

When human government seems lost and without hope, let us not only remember that we the people have the power to make changes in government, but, mostly, that our hope is ultimately not in men or government. It is in God and his future government, upon whose throne will be a crucified and risen Messiah, and about whom the prophecy was given: “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever” (Isaiah 9:7).

No wonder the term gospel means “good news.”

It’s still difficult to believe that last week President Obama actually celebrated Feb. 17 as the first anniversary of his stimulus plan (a.k.a. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), in which Washington borrowed $862 billion on American taxpayers’ credit. Celebrating the piling of $1 trillion on the backs of our posterity?

Call me clueless, but I’ve never considered easing present circumstances by going into massive amounts of debt as an answer to anyone’s economic recovery and longevity.

But I bet there’s one date the president definitely won’t be celebrating: this Saturday, Feb. 27, which marks the first anniversary of the tea-party movement.

To think, last year at this time, the mainstream media and Washington politicians were either completely overlooking them or labeling those patriot gatherings as extreme and wacky fringe resistances. WorldNetDaily was virtually alone in reporting the tea parties as a legitimate patriotic movement, like the original 1773 protest in Boston Harbor.

Today, just one year later, tea-party patriots have proven themselves as a collective and formidable force and foe against big government power and corruption. Even according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, roughly one in five adult Americans identifies with the tea-party movement.

Tea-party patriots cross all partisan lines. What unifies us is our fundamental belief that what America’s founders established was good and right, that we’ve largely abandoned their vision, and the only recourse to reawaken America is to return to their principles and values. But that is easier said than done, as progressives have worked double-time to discredit and undermine them and the very pillars of their republic.

A few years back, an editor at the New York Times wrote, “The Founding Fathers were paranoid hypocrites and ungrateful malcontents.” He’s not alone. Many liberals in media and higher education share his sentiments, labeling our Founding Fathers as racists, bigots, chauvinists and charlatans, among other things. This is not only ungrateful – it’s wrong. It’s their contributions, not their character flaws, that we should be highlighting. As Samuel Adams said in 1771, “Let us first see it prov’d that they were mistakes. ‘Till then we must hold ourselves obliged to them for sentiments transmitted to us so worthy of their character, and so important to our security.”

Thomas G. West, professor of politics at the University of Dallas, rightly acknowledged our founders’ worth in his excellent book “Vindicating the Founders” by pointing out that they “set up a government that did what no democracy had ever done before: It combined majority rule with effective protection for minority rights. It enabled a larger number of men and women to live in prosperity and liberty than any other nation has ever done.”

Of course, the founders weren’t perfect, but they were far better than what leftist professors and progressives make them out to be. We know that most of the founders regarded slavery as a wrong that would have to be addressed.

They knew that equal rights applied to all: men, women and children – slave and free. They did not achieve all they wanted, but what they did achieve was miraculous. That miracle is our heritage. As Joseph Ellis stated in his narrative masterpiece, “Founding Brothers,” the Constitutional Convention should be called “the miracle of Philadelphia …”

America’s Founding Fathers gave us the framework and foundations to experience freedom and liberty for all. But we can’t do that unless we know who they were, what they stood for and what they achieved. To restore America, we need to reclaim our past and learn from it. It is only by turning back and examining the past that we can reawaken or (if you will) reboot our country.

Unfortunately, those who want to reconstruct our constitutional government, redefine our founding documents and revise our history according to their ideological whims are being allowed to do just that because of the apathy of too many well-meaning Americans. If we don’t care about our past, if we don’t learn our history, if we don’t cherish the Constitution and the principles of the Declaration of Independence, then just as we have allowed ourselves to be robbed of our past, so too will America be robbed of its rightful future.

The first thing we need to do to restore America is to insist that our government officials abide by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and that they rightly interpret their tenets. If, like most people, you’re a little rusty on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, here’s a quick primer or reminder of what our government was meant to be – and should be.

In 1776, by an act of the Second Continental Congress, the original 13 colonies of North America adopted a Declaration of Independence, dissolving their relations with England. America would be a confederation of independent countries (“states”). In 1777, the Articles of Confederation (our first Constitution and governing document) was written and adopted by the Second Continental Congress, though not ratified until 1781.

The Federalists soon recognized the deficiencies in the Articles of Confederation, and so they called for a constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787. By the end of their four-month convention, the United States Constitution was adopted, though not completely ratified until 1790. It has been amended 27 times since. (The first 10 amendments constitute the Bill of Rights.)

The whole point of the Constitution is to provide a framework for our government, to set its rules, and to protect our rights by limiting government power. The Constitution requires that the president and members of Congress “be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this constitution.” In other words, every elected member of the federal government is accountable for abiding by the Constitution.

We the people must hold them accountable. But how many of us hold our elected leaders to account? And how far have we allowed the federal government and federal courts to take powers that the Constitution doesn’t give them? When we do, we let them rob us of our own freedom, and of the rights to self-determination that our forefathers wanted us to have.

It’s time to bombard the White House and congressional leaders with copies of our Constitution and remind them that we the people are going to hold them accountable to it or we’ll vote them out.

America’s greatest problem is that we have forgotten our roots. Too many of us don’t know or don’t feel connected to those who founded our country.

Case in point, in 2007, a national survey commissioned by the U.S. Mint found that only 30 percent of Americans knew that Thomas Jefferson was our third president, and only 7 percent could name the first four presidents in order.

If you’re a part of the 93 percent, then you know that they were George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The fact is most Americans don’t have a clue why our founders created this country, what principles motivated them or why they framed our Constitution the way they did.

As citizens of this great country, we need to renew our understanding of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We need to go back and study the debates between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, to understand why many founders like Thomas Jefferson were very concerned about a run-away federal government.

We need to examine other important documents of our history, like the Articles of Confederation, the Bill of Rights and the Northwest Ordinance. We need to sit down and learn all the important American history we should have learned in school – and probably didn’t.

You might not have thought it mattered then. But you have to understand that it matters now. If Americans don’t know their constitutional history, then they won’t care, or even acknowledge, that our Constitution of liberty is being transformed into a charter for big government, which is exactly what has happened over a period of decades.

Clearly, the government we have today is not the government outlined in the Constitution. It’s grown far beyond the limits the Constitution sets – and as a result we are facing dangers from which the Constitution’s framers tried to preserve us.

The framers set out a path for us, and we’ve strayed from it. And the first thing any rational man does when he’s lost his way is to look at a map. If you think, as I do, that America has taken a wrong turn, studying America’s Revolutionary history is the first step to helping us find our way back. Just like millions of tea-party patriots have already done.

To find a tea-party birthday celebration in your area this Saturday, Feb. 27, check out the various gatherings under “events” at Teaparty.freedomworks.org.

Happy first birthday tea-party patriots! If participants in the Boston Tea Party of 1773 laid the groundwork for the Declaration of Independence just three years later, imagine what impact you can have by the time you celebrate your third birthday.

And to think they thought you were just fleeting fringe fanatics!

(For more on how to reawaken America to our founder’s vision and plans for this country, check out Chuck Norris’ brand new – January 2010 – expanded paperback version of his New York Times best-seller, “Black Belt Patriotism.”)

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At almost 80 years old, Thomas Jefferson foresaw the corruption of a federal government with too much power, when he wrote to William T. Barry in 1822, just a few years before his death: “If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption[s], indifferent and incapable of wholesome care over so wide of spread of surface.” “Wholesome care” like health care?

I waited until after the New Year to write this column because Washington was hoping its Christmas corruption would evade the majority of holiday revelers or become old news to even political junkies and pundits who are now moving onto new issues. (This White House astutely understands and utilizes news cycles and calendars far better than any preceding presidencies.)

While you were with family and friends enjoying the holiday festivities, Congress and the president passed a $1 trillion omnibus bill with more than 5,000 earmarks (and covertly also loaded with far-left anti-family underpinnings). (Mr. Obama, what happened to your promise to eliminate all earmarks?)

The U.S. Senate also passed an $871 billion health care reform bill on Christmas Eve through shady, sweetheart backdoor deals. While you were cutting your Christmas spending because of the recession, Congress charged you and your children’s national credit card with another $2 trillion plus.

For those who missed the bloated bureaucratic holiday news, President Obama exclaimed that congressional Democrats “scored a big victory for the American people,” but, in fact, it was actually our senators who scored big time through political and personal payoffs. Even the New York Times blew a trumpet about them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid passed out Christmas bonuses, what I call perpetual pork, gifts that keep on giving, unlike those familiar single hits at the public trough. He initiated a new frontier in pork-barrel politics. His corrupt and creative diversions included giving out Medicaid and Medicare credits like another round of pork projects. In 383 pages of changes to the 2,076 page Senate bill HR. 3590, there are dozens of these types of pork rind provisions for senators.

This health-care pork round all started with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who bragged about receiving a $300 million increase in Medicaid funding for her state (what some are calling the second Louisiana Purchase), which turned out to be only $100 million. (Isn’t that a relief?)

Then there was the now infamous Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who gained his 15 minutes of yuletide fame when he sold out his critical 60th vote to pass Obamacare by accepting a governmental bribe that covers Nebraska’s Medicare expansion costs to the tune of $100 million over the next 10 years.

With Obama having told the AARP back on July 28 that he considered Medicare Advantage an example of “wasteful spending,” you could bet Obamacare would reflect his commentary. And in a statement released after the Senate health-care bill passed on Dec. 24, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., confessed his sweetheart deal made behind closed doors: “I was able to pass an amendment to the bill that excluded some 800,000 policyholders all across Florida from cuts to Medicare Advantage.”

But wait there’s more – much more.

• Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., finagled $600 million in additional Medicaid benefits for his state over 10 years.
• Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Kent Conrad, D-N.D., secured additional Medicare payments for their rural hospitals
• Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, chairman of the Senate health committee, openly confessed “I fully admit that I was part of it. I put something in the bill that was particular to the state of Iowa. Yes I did,” referring to the increase in Medicare payments to eight medium-sized hospitals in his state.
• Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee and a primary architect of the legislation, secured extra Medicare benefits for select Montana residents.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was opposed to backing the bill until Reid agreed to a $10 billion increase in support for community health centers.
• The Manager’s Amendment singles out Sens. Daniel Akaka’s, D-Hawaii, and Daniel Inouye’s, D-Hawaii, home state of Hawaii as the only state to receive a Disproportionate Share Hospital, or DSH, extension.
• Hospitals in Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s home state of Connecticut, like Carl Levin’s, D-Mich., and Debbie Stabenow’s, D-Mich., state of Michigan, have the option to benefit under provisions if it means higher payments.
• Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., among senators in other states, won deals for more generous federal payments under the Medicaid program.
• At the last minute, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., inserted a $100 million kickback in the bill to construct a new hospital for the University of Connecticut.
• And Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., won the super-loser award for claiming credit for the provision in the Reid bill that could eventually provide federal funds again for ACORN!

Another huge beneficiary of the Senate health care bill’s monetary benefits are some insurance companies (just when you thought our government was protecting us from those big bad corporate monopolies). A proposal was initially made by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., to exempt non-profit insurance companies from the Senate bill’s $6 billion annual excise tax on insurers. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., (remember the cornhusker kickback?) then sealed that sweetheart deal in a way that only Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company and Blue Cross Blue Shield nonprofit plans in Nebraska and Michigan qualified. By the way, nonprofit insurers in Sen. Levin’s home state of Michigan control 76 percent of industry profits. Incidentally, the industry spent $635 million lobbying during the last two years, obtaining a host of concessions at taxpayer expense.

And to secure its shady deals so that no one (and I mean no one) can avert its actions, Congress has inserted one of the most unconstitutional sections I’ve ever read in a piece of legislation: Section 3403 of Reid’s amendment on Page 1,020 reads, “It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

Of course, Harry Reid merely labeled these backdoor deals as “the art of compromise,” but we all know it better as “the art of corruption.” He said what they’ve done with the Senate health-care bill is “no different than other pieces of legislation.” I agree with him – that’s the problem!

Even David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, minimized the corruption in these senatorial sweetheart deals by saying, “That’s the way it has been. That’s the way it will always be.” Do you share his pessimism? Is that the government you want for your children and grandchildren?

And these are the politicians in whose hands you are trusting your and your loved ones’ future health care?

Most important is the question Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, posed to his colleagues, “Who will pay for these special deals?” “The answer is simple – every other state in the union.”

It’s no surprise that congressional Democrats have mounting opponents even in their own camp, two of the newest opponents are governors from the bluest states in the union, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, and David Paterson, a liberal Democrat, who oppose the Senate’s health-care reform bill because they believe the new Medicaid mandates will lead to the financial ruin of California and New York.

And all the costs haven’t even been calculated yet, because the bribery isn’t over. The House and Senate leaders will now hold private negotiations this month to merge the Senate’s $871 billion and the House’s $1 trillion health-care bills. And you don’t think that some bribery babble has already been occurring in the closets and corridors of Congress? (So much for that C-Span coverage of closed clandestine conferences that President Obama promised during his presidential campaign.)

After observing the Senate’s health-care debate and already receiving some legislative offers to favor Obamacare, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., had a word for the White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “This shouldn’t be a bill where you use hush money. This isn’t an appropriations bill where you try to get the best projects for your state. … You don’t buy me off.”

Rep. Stupak, don’t think they don’t have your number, literally. But will you, like other House members, play the “Price is Right,” too?

The fact is that the average American citizen would be thrown in jail for embezzlement and dirty laundering if they were to conduct their business as Congress does our country. In fact, David Williams, from the nonpartisan, nonprofit group Citizens Against Government Waste, hit the nail on the head, when he said, “We have former members of Congress in jail and a lobbyist in jail for this sort of behavior. People are really fed up with it.”

I’m reminded again of the sentiments of Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote, “[I]t was a cause of just uneasiness, when we saw a legislature legislating for their own interests, in opposition to those of the people.”

Senate, rather than seeking your own needs, why not seek the needs of those who voted you into office? Most Americans know that only 20 percent of our health-care system is broken, so why not focus your attention on fixing the 20 percent and leave the 80 percent that’s working alone? (Of course, that means you won’t get your earmarks. Waah!)

Tired yet of the congressional charade and the bogus beneficiaries of health care? I’m done –I’ve had enough. They’ve tried to pull a fast one on us for the last time. Those corrupt crime bosses we call congressmen have caused enough damage. Though the Senate vote is over, the bill isn’t law. We might have lost a battle, but the war is still on! So I say we roundhouse them in return. It’s time to push for some serious housecleaning this next election. Obviously, Senate, you’re not taking seriously 10 million pink slips sent to you, when you should be!

In November 2010, all 435 House seats will be open for re-election, and one-third of the Senate seats will be open for re-election as well. The time is now to eject the unconstitutional corrupt congressmen, and it’s time to let them know what’s coming.

I agree with Tea party leaders, who are delivering bold ultimatums to all congressional candidates in 2010: “Pledge to repeal the health-care reform bill in its entirety – or you will be booted from office.”

Congress, you’re waking a sleeping giant, and you’re not going to like the consequences.

More Chuck Norris at: Chuck @ WND

Even in Obama’s superstar Christmas interviews with Oprah and Gloria Estefan, there were discussions about Santa, Christmas trees, ornaments, gingerbread houses and even their dog’s Christmas stocking. Obama even gave a Christmas shout-out to all Hispanics. But there was not one discussion of religion or a hint of the real reason for the season.

Gone are the days when presidents and most politicians publicly rejoice in the birth of Christ.

But things were not always this way. As with many of you, I still remember a day even in Washington when Christ was central to Christmas. It was an America that was far less politically correct – an America that wasn’t afraid to stand up for its belief in the babe who was born in Bethlehem.

Here’s a small sample of that America represented in personal and public presidential Christmas proclamations and events, as documented in presidential library archives, at WhiteHouseChristmasCards.com and by historian David Barton in his treatise “Christmas with the presidents.”

On Christmas Day, 1795, President George Washington celebrated Christmas with members of Congress at his Mount Vernon estate, complete with a fox hunt, feast including “Christmas pie,” music, dancing and visiting that at times continued for a solid week.

America’s second president, John Adams, was the first to hold a White House Christmas party.

Thomas Jefferson loved celebrating Christmas, from his youth considering the day as a time of “merriment” and “The day of greatest mirth and jollity.” He threw elaborate parties at the White House and his Monticello estate for family and friends, played his violin, sang his favorite Christmas song, “Adeste Fideles” (“Oh Come All Ye Faithful”), and even gave his slaves a few days off each year to enjoy the holiday due to his abolitionist leanings.

(And let’s not forget, when at the White House during the eight years of his presidency, Jefferson attended church where he did each week in the Capitol building – something that continued through the Civil War – in 1867 it was the largest church in Washington with 2,000 people attending weekly.)

During the 1835 Christmas season, President Andrew Jackson sent out invitations and cards (of sorts) to local children inviting them to an event in the East Room on Christmas Day, in memory of a boy who had never heard of Christmas, never knew his father and whose mother died at a young age. That boy was Jackson himself.

President John Tyler also enjoyed hosting Christmas parties for children.

After a chaotic political season in December 1848, in which intense debate ensued over issues relating to slavery and expanding U.S. territory, President James K. Polk described Christmas Day as “perhaps the most quiet day of my presidential term,” despite apparently not accompanying Mrs. Polk and the children to church on that particular day.

President James Buchanan, a devout Presbyterian, would have his southern Pennsylvania estate extravagantly decorated at Christmas for the community to enjoy (a tradition that is still done to this day).

President Abraham Lincoln read the Bible throughout his life and attended services at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church on a regular basis, including at Christmas time. During the Civil War, he and his wife would visit hospitals on Christmas to help care for the wounded. During one political campaign, he declared “I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general. … I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office
whom I knew to be an open enemy of … religion.”

In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the bill that made Christmas Day a national holiday.

Being credited with establishing the tradition of posting a Christmas tree in the White House (the first occurrence being with President Franklin Pierce), President Benjamin Harrison was also a deeply devout Christian, who wrote to his son Russell in 1887, “I hope you will renew your Christian faith and duties. It is a great comfort to trust God – even if His providence is [at times] unfavorable. Prayer steadies one when he is walking in slippery places – even if things asked for are not given.”

In 1898, two years before his assassination, the New York Times wrote of the encouragement that President William McKinley and his ailing wife received from these words in their pastor’s Christmas Day sermon: “God’s Christmas gift of freedom has come to the suffering and wronged through the agency of a nation that was obedient to His call, and helpfulness sent forth form angelic lips – ‘Goodwill toward men.’”

Each year on Christmas Eves, President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt traveled to Christ Church in Oyster Bay, N.Y., and, following the pastor’s sermon, gave one of his famous “sermonettes” on the meaning of Christmas. The service would end with his favorite hymn, “Christmas by the Sea.”

In 1927, in every major newspaper across the land, a Christmas admonishment from President Calvin Coolidge was published in his own hand about “the real spirit of Christmas – if we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us all will shine a star-sending its gleam of hope to the world.”

President Herbert Hoover wrote to the Nation’s Christmas Trees Association on Dec. 25, 1931: “Your annual Christmas service … is a dramatic and inspiring event of national interest. It symbolizes and vivifies our greatest Christian festival with its eternal message of unselfishness, joy, and peace.”

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared in his Christmas address to the nation on Dec. 24, 1944 (the first Christmas after D-Day), “Here, at home, we will celebrate this Christmas Day in our traditional American way – because of its deep spiritual meaning to us; because the teachings of Christ are fundamental in our lives; and because we want our youngest generation to grow up knowing the significance of this tradition and the story of the coming of the immortal Prince of Peace and Good Will. [FDR then prayed for the troops.] We pray that with victory will come a new day of peace on earth in which all the Nations of the earth will join together for all time. That is the spirit of Christmas, the holy day. May that spirit live and grow throughout the world in all the years to come.”

President Harry Truman gave these words during his Christmas Eve national broadcast on Dec. 24, 1949, “Since returning home, I have been reading again in our family Bible some of the passages which foretold this night. … We miss the spirit of Christmas if we consider the Incarnation as an indistinct and doubtful, far-off event unrelated to our present problems. We miss the purport of Christ’s birth if we do not accept it as a living link which joins us together in spirit as children of the ever-living and true God. In love alone – the love of God and the love of man – will be found the solution of all the ills which afflict the world today.”

President Dwight Eisenhower publicly proclaimed on Dec. 23, 1960, “Through the ages men have felt the uplift of the spirit of Christmas. We commemorate the birth of the Christ Child by the giving of gifts, by joining in carols of celebration, by giving expression to our gratitude for the great things that His coming has brought about in the world.”

It’s well known that President John Kennedy was a Catholic. What’s not so well known is that, in 1957, then Sen. Kennedy disclosed at the National Conference of Christians and Jews Dinner what he believed would remedy the ills in society: “Upon what can we rely? Where can we compete? In what can we find hope for the future? The answer, I believe, lies ultimately in the very principles which we honor tonight – the principles of our Judaic-Christian heritage.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson publicly declared on Dec. 22, 1963, “We were taught by Him whose birth we commemorate that after death there is life. … In these last 200 years we have guided the building of our Nation and our society by those principles and precepts brought to earth nearly 2,000 years ago on that first Christmas.”

President Richard Nixon was a Quaker and hosted church services in the East Room of White House while he was president, initiated on his first Sunday in office by none other than Rev. Billy Graham.

President Gerald Ford publicly declared on Dec. 18, 1975, “In our 200 years, we Americans have always honored the spiritual testament of 2,000 years ago. We embrace the spirit of the Prince of Peace so that we might find peace in our own hearts and in our own land, and hopefully in the world as well.”

President Jimmy Carter spoke to the nation on Dec. 15, 1977, “Christmas has a special meaning for those of us who are Christians, those of us who believe in Christ, those of us who know that almost 2,000 years ago, the Son of Peace was born to give us a vision of perfection, a vision of humility, a vision of unselfishness, a vision of compassion, a vision of love.”

President Ronald Reagan repeatedly affirmed his and the nations’ Christian faith at Christmas time, like these words on Dec. 16, 1982, “In this holiday season, we celebrate the birthday of One who, for almost 2,000 years, has been a greater influence on humankind than all the rulers, all the scholars, all the armies and all the navies that ever marched or sailed, all put together. … [I]t’s also a holy day, the birthday of the Prince of Peace, a day when ‘God so loved the world’ that He sent us His only begotten Son to assure forgiveness of our sins.”

President George H. W. Bush stated to the nation on Dec. 18, 1989, “At Christmas, we, too, rejoice in the mystery of God’s love for us – love revealed through the gift of Christ’s birth. Born into a family of a young carpenter and his wife, in a stable shared by beasts of the field, our Savior came to live among ordinary men. Yet, in time, the miraculous nature of this simple event became clear. Christ’s birth changed the course of history, bringing the light of hope to a world dwelling in the darkness of sin and death. Today, nearly 2,000 years later, the shining promise of that first Christmas continues to give our lives a sense of peace and purpose. Our words and deeds, when guided by the example of Christ’s life, can help others share in the joy of man’s Redemption.”

President Bill Clinton addressed the nation on Dec. 21, 1999, with these words, “Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us that on the first Christmas 2,000 years ago, a bright star shone vividly in the eastern sky, heralding the birth of Jesus and the beginning of His hallowed mission as teacher, healer, servant, and savior.”

And President George W. Bush spoke in his Christmas message on Dec. 21, 2007, “During the Christmas season, our thoughts turn to the source of joy and hope born in a humble manger on a holy night more than 2,000 years ago. Each year, Christians everywhere celebrate this single life that changed the world and continues to change hearts today. … Christmas is a time to rejoice and remember the birth of Jesus Christ.”

Will President Obama’s Christmas address rival those Christian confessions of past presidents? Or will his yuletide cheer be another politically correct concoction that has already adorned the first year of his presidency?

Based upon President Obama’s first year’s utter disregard for America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promotion of a secular-progressive agenda and pro-Islamic platforms, the only white Christmas I would count on at the White House is a continued whitewashing of religious tradition in Washington. But does America really need another version of “Away with the Manger”?

First, even during his campaign for the presidency, Obama sarcastically belittled America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and degraded its adherents with trite remarks typical of any atheistic antagonist: “Whatever we were, we are no longer a Christian nation”; “The dangers of sectarianism are greater than ever”; “Religion doesn’t allow for compromise”: “The Sermon on the Mount [is] a passage that is so radical that our own defense department wouldn’t survive its application”; and “To base our policy making upon such commitments [as moral absolutes] would be a dangerous thing.” (See the YouTube video: “Barack Obama on the importance of a secular government.”)

Second, President Obama has already denied America’s rich Judeo-Christian heritage before the eyes and ears of other countries, as he publicly declared in Turkey on April 6, 2009, for the whole world to hear: “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” (Who are the “we” to whom he refers? Would our former presidents agree with his “we”?)

Third, quite contrary to Obama’s negative tone and sentiments about Judeo-Christian belief, in countless speeches over the past year he has sympathized and supported pro-Islamic theology and practice. Just recently, he encouraged Americans “not to jump to conclusions” about the Fort Hood shooter being a Muslim extremist. And he refused to say anything when the Muslim extremist and president of Iran publicly accused the U.S. of actively planning and plotting to stop mankind’s real savior: i.e. Mahdi, the imam that Muslims believe will be the ultimate savior of mankind.

Fourth, President Obama has enabled an anti-Christian agenda unlike any former president by revising America’s religious history, minimizing the role of religion today, passing secular-progressive legislation and turning a blind eye to issues like atheists’ lawsuit to remove the national motto (“In God We Trust”) off of the walls of the new Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, D.C., or the ACLU’s disposal of Veteran memorial crosses in the Mojave Desert and at Mount Soledad. Every time President Obama has had an opportunity to stand for Christianity in any way, he has not only denied it but disdained it.

A grave manifestation is Obamacare’s incorporation to use federal funds to pay for abortion and thereby force people of conscience who are pro-life to pay for the terminations of life in the womb across the country. (What a tragic piece of legislation to pass in the shadow of the day when we celebrate the birth of the world’s savior, Jesus Christ.)

What President Obama, like many other liberal politicians, needs is a paradigm shift – a new way of seeing America, which is really an old way. It’s the way our founders viewed America, and it incorporates a good ol’ fashioned Christmas proclamation of Christ’s birth. That America is the one I outline in my new (January 2010) paperback expansion of my New York Times best-seller, “Black Belt Patriotism,” which is ironically the same Christmas gift I’m sending to the president!

And there is one gift that I propose the president give this nation. Since Obama prides himself on being the technological president, in lieu of his Christmas proclamation this year, I suggest that he just send out across the nation the online link to a YouTube video that I had posted under the title, “Ronald Reagan Christmas Address (12/23/81).”

Get more Chuck Norris: Chuck @ WND

Washington is up to its old political shell game again, but this time – to steal an often used word from the mouth of our president – in an unprecedented way.

While the mainstream media are focused on President Obama’s two trips to Europe (last week to Oslo and this week to Copenhagen), the Democrats in Congress slipped major pro-abortion legislation under the radar.

First, last Monday the Senate tabled the amendment introduced by Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that would ban federal funds from providing for abortion in its health-care reform bill.

Then on Thursday the House of Representatives rushed the clandestine approval of an overinflated $1 trillion omnibus bill that includes 5,224 earmarks costing about $3.9 billion and an underhanded provision that overturns a long-standing budget ban in the District of Columbia (whose budget is overseen by Congress) for federally funding abortions.

After the Democrat-controlled Senate cleared a procedural vote on Saturday needed to end a Republican filibuster, on yet another near-secret Sunday afternoon session, the Senate passed the omnibus bill, and its provision that also overturns the 1988 Dornan Amendment, which prevented use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions in Washington, D.C. Tragically, the bill also appropriates $648.5 million for international family planning funding (an increase of $103 million over 2009) and contains funding for Planned Parenthood and for the United Nations Population Fund, both of which have pro-abortion agendas.

According to Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, what the congressional Democratic leaders did was to take “a single appropriations bill that’s just supposed to cover a couple of departments and just stapl[ed] a bunch of other bills to it that were never even taken up by the Senate.” Johnson further explained, “So, they ram[med] these through under a fast-track procedure where the Senate would never have even debated nor had a chance to vote on these measures.”

In short, while President Obama was accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the Democrats in Congress drove a sword through the womb of the unborn.

But when politicians like Sen. Barbara Boxer liken funding abortion for women to funding Viagra for men, can’t we see that politicians have lost touch with reality and America is in deep, deep trouble? Even Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., added to the ludicrousness by asking, “What if we were to vote on a Viagra amendment and it had the same limits that would apply for abortion?” He concluded by saying that he wanted his daughters and granddaughters to have access to all “reproductive health care.”

The big question and bottom line, as Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked, is: “Why should people of conscience be forced to participate in any aspect of abortion?”

Washington has certainly reached a new low by forcing American citizens who oppose abortion to pay for them via their taxes in this massively comprehensive way. Is it intentionally trying to spark the next Boston Tea Party? (Washington’s wild spending and abandonment of the American people and our founder’s vision is what prompted me to add a 64-page expansion to the new paperback version of my New York Times best-seller, “Black Belt Patriotism,” being released in Jan. 2010 through Fidelis Books. See the new website.)

Congress’ latest pro-abortion strategy is a radical divergence from – and sheer contradiction of – Obama’s promise just given back on Sept. 9, “Under our [health care reform] plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” Looks like Congress will assist him after all in fulfilling his campaign promise to Planned Parenthood to “turn the page” on the abortion debate.

Let there be no doubt about this: Obama is still hell-bent to fulfill his campaign promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, or FOCA, which is a sweeping bill that would abolish all pro-life regulations across the nation, from parental notification laws to bans on all federal funding of abortion.

If that pro-abortion page is going to turn, however, the Democrats in Congress know that they must modify the existing amendments that prohibit federal funding for the termination of life in the womb, and the Dornan Amendment is their place to start. Next will likely be the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the same through Health and Human Services like Medicaid. (If Congress can overshadow Medicaid with its new pro-abortion, universal socialized medical plan, how long will it take before the Hyde Amendment is regarded as obsolete?)

Tragically, all of these pro-abortion actions are being taken by Washington despite a new nationwide survey revealing that four out of five U.S. adults (82 percent) would limit abortion’s legality. One out of three (38 percent) would limit abortion to rape, incest or to save the mother’s life. One out of three (33 percent) would also limit abortion to either the first three or first six months. Only nine percent said abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy.

Mark my words, federal funding of abortion will become a reality unless America stands up now and assures the passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which would stop federal funds for new programs created by H.R. 3962, and the Nelson-Hatch Amendment, which would also restrict such funding in the Senate health-care reform bill.

If you haven’t done so, now is the critical time for action: Contact your representatives and senators at (202) 224-3121 or by visiting the websites of the Senate and House. Then contact the White House at (202) 456-2111 or fax (202) 456-2461 with the following:

Lastly, as we sit on the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have happened if Mother Mary were covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor uninsured teenaged woman were provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy? Will Obamacare morph into Herodcare for the unborn? Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind, if only they too would have been as progressive as Washington’s wise men and women!

America doesn’t need to “turn the page” on culture wars like abortion. It needs
to reopen the pages of its history to our founders’ elevated views of and rights for all human beings (including those in the womb) as documented in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We need to revive and re-instill their value of humanity back into society, our children and our children’s children.

And, most of all, Washington needs to run our government as Thomas Jefferson outlined, when he wrote in 1809, “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”

(Don’t miss my Christmas column next week, titled “Away with the manger,” about how the feds are whitewashing America’s Judeo-Christian heritage via a progressive, politically correct and pro-Muslim platform.)

Chuck @ WND

Copenhagen is on fire this week, and there’s far more heating up than just the climate.

While heads of state and others gather this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (Dec. 7-18), bonfires have already been blazing for weeks on that European front.

Let me see if I can summarize the chestnuts roasting on that Copenhagen fire.

Shocking e-mail exchanges from scientists at an eminent global-warming research center in the United Kingdom have proven that key climate-change scientists have suppressed evidence to “trick” or “hide the decline” of global temperatures.

Rather than focus on the audacity of the climate-gate cover up, Obama’s top science adviser, John Holdren, downplayed the e-mails, telling Congress that the controversy involved a small group of scientists. And others like Sen. Barbara Boxer blamed the hackers who exposed the e-mails rather than the scientists who deceived the world with false global climate reports.

Similarly, the U.N. was caught recently deleting documents that would disclose how member states are leading (or not leading) the way in self-greening efforts.

The scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters documented that ice melt on Antarctica was the lowest in 30 years during the 2008-2009, a fact being intentionally ignored by NASA.

A U.S. scholar is threatening to sue NASA to prompt the agency to release climate-change data, which he says has been manipulated just like over in Britain.

Officials in the Environmental Protection Agency gagged one of their own senior researchers after the 38-year employee submitted an internal critique of the EPA’s climate change position.

Unlike the U.S., China and India have already opposed foreign climate governance because it would jeopardize their national sovereignty.

Nearly two months ago Lord Christopher Monckton, once science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, warned us that the real purpose of the conference was more about global government than global warming.

In my former column, titled “Obama’s one-world government,” I’ve already detailed more than a dozen actual statements in the proposed summit treaty that threatens our national sovereignty, could severely cripple our already depressed economy and are so globally socialistic that they would make even a communist blush.

Al Gore actually made statements in July 2009 at Oxford that change will be driven through “global governance.”

Based upon the cover-up of declining global temperatures at the leading British research center, two members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released a statement Thursday calling for the Academy
to revoke Al Gore’s Oscar for his global warming treatise, “An Inconvenient Truth.”

The U.N. climate chief, Yvo de Boer, reported that $10-12 billion annually will be needed from developed countries (like the U.S.) through 2012 to “kick-start” things. According the World Bank, adapting for global warming (like building larger dams or higher bridges) will cost an additional $75 billion to $100 billion a year over the next 40 years. (A business professor at the University of Cambridge says it could be as high as $200-$300 billion.)

WND reported that the Coca-Cola corporation
is spearheading its own coalition of more than 100 companies “pushing a United Nations climate treaty to bind the U.S. to cap-and-trade emissions regulation, commit the world’s wealthiest nations to a potential $10 trillion in foreign aid and, possibly, form a proposed international ‘super-grid’ for regulating and distributing electric power worldwide.”

Japan’s Energy Commission revealed the majority of Japanese scientists reject U.N. and Western-backed theories of climate change.

Thousands of leading international scientists from premier scientific and academic institutions (like MIT, Harvard, USC, Princeton, Carleton University in Canada, University of Bologna, Pulvoko Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Danish National Space Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Geophysics in Paris, University of Auckland, etc.) oppose what are being called mainstream scientific assessments on global warming.

Despite calls from U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, for members of Congress to consider the joint opinion of more than 32,000 U.S. scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who believe humans likely have little or no part in the creation of “global warming,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs justified the White House position and waved away opposition by tritely retorting “most people believe in global warming,” despite Americans’ belief in global warming has declined and is at a 12-year low.

With 16,500 delegates descending upon Copenhagen, including 140 aircraft carrying world leaders, heads of state and VIPs, the U.N. estimates the 12-day conference will create 40,584 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. And could it be merely coincidental that all these planes are amassing on one place on Dec. 7 – the very anniversary date of Pearl Harbor? Or are these all signs that our real enemies are looming on the horizon?

As I consider all of these chestnuts roasting on the Copenhagen fire, the questions that keep coming to my mind are:

Why is our president going to Copenhagen?

If there’s no final draft of a treaty to sign, why is our president “contributing to global warming” by flying that super-jumbo 747 Air Force One to Copenhagen?

Why does Obama want to require American households to pay possibly more than $3,000 annual additional taxes to reduce greenhouse emissions?

In the midst of one of America’s worst recessions, where is the federal government going to get the money to pay for the billions to fulfill the financial promise to assist developing countries with green initiatives, as it outlines on Page 11 of the 181-page climate summit treaty: “… ensuring that global crises, such as the financial crisis, should not constitute an obstacle to the provision of financial and technical assistance to developing countries in accordance with the Convention”?

Hasn’t the Obama administration charged enough on the nation’s credit cards in its first year in power by its trillions of dollars in bailouts, borrowing and additional government programs, including socialized medicine?

How much more will we take? Or should I say, how much more will they take?

Our government would do well to reconsider and actually live and lead by the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said during his first inaugural address in 1801: “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

Get More Chuck Norris: Chuck @ WND

Alas, after nearly three months of military deliberations, our commander in chief is finally coming out of the closet with his Afghan strategy. But is his plan based more upon politics than national security?

In September, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested 40,000 additional troops on top of the 68,000 already there. This increase would allow the military flexibility to deploy 15,000 forces to the Taliban stronghold in the south, 5,000 to the eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for Afghan security forces. The other 10,000 would be deployed across the country in various overt and covert operations.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen suggested a plan deploying roughly 30,000 more forces. Vice President Joe Biden advocated a plan of only 10,000 to 15,000 more. And President Obama appears to be landing on roughly 30,000 more troops (with hopefully 10,000 more from the 41-country international alliance).

And one of the big questions that keeps coming to our minds is: How is it that Obama fast-tracks borrowing, bailouts or Obamacare, but he’s slower than molasses when it comes to decisions like this one for the military, especially when he basically is returning to Gen. McChrystal’s three-month-old request?

Some answer that military decisions are more complicated – more life and death at stake – and warrant the delay. But I genuinely believe Obama’s nearly three-month delay reflects both his leadership deficiencies and a quandary that he cannot appease the left and simultaneously fulfill his campaign promise, “I will make the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban the top priority that it should be.”

As I shared more than a year ago while Obama was still on the campaign trail, a professional leadership and personality profile was completed on him that revealed that he implodes when in jams that require quick or solo decisions under pressure. St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics in the Department of Psychology, did this test “for anticipating Obama’s likely leadership style as chief executive, thereby providing a basis for inferring the character and tenor of a prospective Obama presidency.” The study concluded:

The combination of Ambitious, Accommodating, and Outgoing patterns in Obama’s profile suggests a confident conciliator personality composite. Leaders with this personality prototype, though self-assured and ambitious, are characteristically gracious, considerate, and benevolent. They are energetic, charming, and agreeable, with a special knack for settling differences, favoring mediation and compromise over force or coercion as a strategy for resolving conflict. They are driven primarily by a need for achievement and also have strong affiliation needs, but a low need for power.

Did you catch the part, “favoring mediation and compromise over force or coercion as a strategy for resolving conflict”? An “accommodating agreeable conciliator favoring compromise” type of personality might be good for mending relations, conveying the warm fuzzies and closing a used-car deal, but it is absolutely not a positive trait for a commander in chief who must lead through emergency conflicts that often require unpopular actions. In times of war, a commander in chief often doesn’t have significant time to ponder and reflect, or such a delay will costs lives and impede progress, which is exactly the price we’ve paid over the past months. (But then again, what did those who elected him expect when the man has not spent a day in the military in his life?)

Alas, after nearly three months of military deliberations, our commander in chief is finally coming out of the closet with his Afghan strategy. But is his plan based more upon politics than national security?

In September, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, requested 40,000 additional troops on top of the 68,000 already there. This increase would allow the military flexibility to deploy 15,000 forces to the Taliban stronghold in the south, 5,000 to the eastern border with Pakistan and 10,000 as trainers for Afghan security forces. The other 10,000 would be deployed across the country in various overt and covert operations.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen suggested a plan deploying roughly 30,000 more forces. Vice President Joe Biden advocated a plan of only 10,000 to 15,000 more. And President Obama appears to be landing on roughly 30,000 more troops (with hopefully 10,000 more from the 41-country international alliance).

And one of the big questions that keeps coming to our minds is: How is it that Obama fast-tracks borrowing, bailouts or Obamacare, but he’s slower than molasses when it comes to decisions like this one for the military, especially when he basically is returning to Gen. McChrystal’s three-month-old request?

Some answer that military decisions are more complicated – more life and death at stake – and warrant the delay. But I genuinely believe Obama’s nearly three-month delay reflects both his leadership deficiencies and a quandary that he cannot appease the left and simultaneously fulfill his campaign promise, “I will make the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban the top priority that it should be.”

As I shared more than a year ago while Obama was still on the campaign trail, a professional leadership and personality profile was completed on him that revealed that he implodes when in jams that require quick or solo decisions under pressure. St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict, Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics in the Department of Psychology, did this test “for anticipating Obama’s likely leadership style as chief executive, thereby providing a basis for inferring the character and tenor of a prospective Obama presidency.” The study concluded:

The combination of Ambitious, Accommodating, and Outgoing patterns in Obama’s profile suggests a confident conciliator personality composite. Leaders with this personality prototype, though self-assured and ambitious, are characteristically gracious, considerate, and benevolent. They are energetic, charming, and agreeable, with a special knack for settling differences, favoring mediation and compromise over force or coercion as a strategy for resolving conflict. They are driven primarily by a need for achievement and also have strong affiliation needs, but a low need for power.

Did you catch the part, “favoring mediation and compromise over force or coercion as a strategy for resolving conflict”? An “accommodating agreeable conciliator favoring compromise” type of personality might be good for mending relations, conveying the warm fuzzies and closing a used-car deal, but it is absolutely not a positive trait for a commander in chief who must lead through emergency conflicts that often require unpopular actions. In times of war, a commander in chief often doesn’t have significant time to ponder and reflect, or such a delay will costs lives and impede progress, which is exactly the price we’ve paid over the past months. (But then again, what did those who elected him expect when the man has not spent a day in the military in his life?)

Long forgotten by most but a haunting reminder to me at the moment are the campaign-trail words of three leading Democrats. Obama’s own vice president, Joe Biden, said last year about the president’s preparation for office, “Right now I don’t believe he is [prepared]. The presidency isn’t something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” And before Obama was her party’s choice, Hillary Clinton repeatedly accused him of being an indecisive waffler. And even former president Bill Clinton dodged having to give an affirmative answer to an ABC correspondent, when asked if Obama was ready to be president, by saying, “You can argue that no one is ready to be president.”

The real problem here (at least for Obama) is that his final Afghan decision can’t be hidden behind closed doors, reserved for late-night Saturday meetings or delegated over to the Democrats in Congress (like the path of Obamacare). At the end of the day, what happens in Afghanistan rests on his shoulders.

Obama desperately needs an “accommodating agreeable conciliator favoring compromise” to please both right and left in this military matter, but he has struggled to find it. In the end, he has chosen a middle option in troop escalation to appease the right and a promise for a quick exit to appease the left. At least, that will be his pledge. Reality, however, is that it will take years (some say even generations) before the Afghan people are at a place for us to hand over security measures.

I understand that military strategy includes multifaceted complexities, especially in a place like Afghanistan. But is fulfilling the strategic request of the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, who understands the war better than anyone, really rocket science? Does Biden’s or Clinton’s input even measure on the meter to such mastery in the military? As I wrote more than a month ago, Obama should have provided immediate and complete compliance to our generals’ expert analysis and requests that is based upon the protection of our troops and the success of the mission. And provide them with better equipment, better trucks and more armor.

Obama’s military dithering and waffling has nearly caused me to drink. (And, trust me, it takes a lot to do that!) Does the present Washington regime really believe the best-laid plan is to send a message to our troops in Afghanistan and their families back home, “Have a Merry middle-of-the-road Christmas”? Is playing politics and compromising troop numbers the right choice when American lives and national security are on the line? You know we’ve come to the end of our rope when our president’s fear of the left (who oppose a troop surge) is greater than his passion to protect our troops.

President Obama, please quit trying to please everyone, help our troops on the ground overseas and complete this mission or get out of Dodge!

This much I know: We should either unleash the full potential of the U.S. military on Afghanistan to complete the mission as quickly as we can or pull out completely and bring our service men and women home to U.S. soil and their families.

Most tragically, the real aftermath of the White House delay has been a record number of U.S. casualties – the highest in the eight years of war: 44 in July, 51 in August, 37 in September, 59 in October and 17 more in November.

Is any political or military delay worth the death of one of those courageous warriors? Could all the corporate bailouts together value more than just one of those lives? No need to rush a decision? Are you kidding me?! Why haven’t the left and lamestream media been crying out over the past months against these war casualties the way we all did when Bush was in office?

I want to finish this column by putting flesh to these sacrifices by telling you about just one of those brave warriors, Staff Sgt. Matthew Pucino, whose family wrote me last week and shared with me about his sacrifice for our and others’ freedom, and that he will be laid to rest soon at Arlington cemetery. Here’s Staff Sgt. Pucino’s obituary and a photo the family sent me of him and me when I toured the Middle East to encourage our troops.

SSG Matthew Albert Pucino

10 Mar 1975 – 23 Nov 2009

SSG Pucino was a true patriot and hero. He was serving on his fourth combat tour when he was killed in action in Pasha Kala, Afghanistan. He had served in the Army since 2002. He joined in the aftermath of the 9/11. He was serving honorably with Co B. 2nd Battalion 20th Special Forces Group, Glen Arm, MD. He had previously served with 5th Special Forces Group. He served as engineer sergeant and an intelligence sergeant.

He was a graduate of Bishop Stang High School; he was also a graduate of Northeastern University with a BS in Criminal Justice. SSG Pucino also graduated from the Infantry School, Airborne School, Special Forces Assessment and Selection, Special Forces Engineer Sergeant Qualification Course, SERE Level C course (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape), and Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant Qualification Course.

SSG Pucino’s awards include Special Forces Tab, Parachutists Badge, Combat Infantryman’s Badge, Bronze Star Medal with oak leaf cluster, Purple Heart and many other military awards.

Matthew was an outstanding professional soldier who gave the ultimate sacrifice for his country, but he is also remembered by his friends and family as a loyal brother and friend, who did love to joke around and have fun. He also loved to cook Italian food and will be remembered for his outstanding Veal Parmigiana.

He is survived by his parents, Albert and Kathryn Pucino, his sisters Lisa Haglof (Pucino) and Melissa Pucino, uncle to PFC Michael Pucino, Nicholas Haglof, Joshua Haglof and Katelyn Haglof.

Let us all pray this Christmas season for the Pucino family, as well as the families of all the other fallen freedom fighters.

God help our president. God help the Afghan people. God help us. God especially help our troops.

(I highly recommend as Obama’s Afghan strategy is sent out and received by our military personnel that we all simultaneously send some form of encouragement to our troops, whether it’s participating in a Christmas care package for our troops through Give2TheTroops.com, the deadline for which is Dec. 5, or a word of encouragement by sending a free Christmas card via LetsSayThanks.com.)

Get More Chuck Norris: Chuck@WND

]]> http://thelibertyguardian.com/2009/12/our-commander-in-chiefs-christmas-crisis/feed/ 0 http://thelibertyguardian.com/2009/11/thankful-for-fading-freedoms-chuck-norris/ http://thelibertyguardian.com/2009/11/thankful-for-fading-freedoms-chuck-norris/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:01:20 +0000 M.J. Harris http://thelibertyguardian.com/?p=418 by Chuck Norris

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”

But what if those who restrict our freedoms are the very people who are in charge of securing them?

Over just the last year, Washington has worked double-time to limit your liberties, despite such reductions being cloaked under the guise of governmental progress.

First and foremost, Washington has reduced our freedoms and restricted our future by heaping upon our posterity astronomical amounts of debt, trying to jump-start the credit circus in our economy. Despite borrowing $787 billion from China to stimulate the economy with a promise to cap unemployment at 8 percent, unemployment has climbed to 10.2 percent and shows no sign of decreasing. And right now a record 14 percent of homeowners are either in foreclosure or behind at least one mortgage payment.

(Thanks to Ron Paul and others, last Thursday a House panel decided to audit the Federal Reserve, finally providing some accountability to this financial
runaway train that doles out billions to whomever it pleases. Even with this mandatory audit, however, the Fed’s monetary policy deliberations will still need to be reined in. I recommend two insightful and strategic books toward that goal: Ron Paul’s “End the Fed” and Vox Day’s “The Return of the Great Depression.”)

Because of all their excessive spending, bailouts and borrowing, Washington has further restricted our financial freedoms by decreasing the value of the dollar. Since just March 2009, the U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the strength of the dollar against other major currencies, plunged more than 15 percent, making U.S. stocks also cheaper for foreign investors.

Washington is also reducing our medical choices or freedoms by mandating a government option upon all of us.

Despite the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression, like a ramrod, Washington believes it’s also a good time to force another $1 trillion on American taxpayers by providing another governmental entitlement called universal health care. In so doing, Washington is further reducing our financial freedoms and slowing future economic recovery by placing even more increased debt and taxes upon Americans to pay for yet another social program.

To add insult to injury, Washington is also going around the back door to provide illegals with universal health care by seeking their amnesty. Not only will Americans pay for another 14 million people’s government health care, but amnesty will also reduce the number of jobs available to legal citizens by adding more to the legal workforce (and demand for better jobs) and simultaneously slow down the rate of the unemployed being re-employed.

(Ask your representatives to support H.R. 615, which expresses that all members of the House who vote in favor of the establishment of a federal government health-insurance option are urged to forgo their right to participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and agree to enroll under that public option as well. There are 97 co-sponsors thus far.)

Washington has also reduced our speech freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment by passing a hate-crimes bill that was appended to the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act, potentially criminalizing conservative free speech if it can be proven to have contributed to assaults based upon sexual orientations.

The White House has even reduced religious freedoms by belittling America’s rich Judeo-Christian heritage, enabling a secular progressive and pro-Islamic agenda, and remaining indifferent to issues such as the ACLU’s disposal of veteran memorial crosses in the Mojave Desert and at Mount Soledad. They also turn a blind eye to the whitewashing of our godly heritage from Washington’s historic landmarks and on U.S. artifacts.

Washington will also restrict religious freedoms and freedoms of conscience by forcing pro-life citizens to pay for abortions via universal health care.

Washington has also reduced our Second Amendment firearm freedoms by appointing anti-gun advocates like Justice Sotomayor or OSHA’s David Michaels, by seeking to micromanage gun ownership via proposed legislation like H.R. 45 and by politics-as-usual, like blaming guns rather than Islamic extremism for the shootings at Fort Hood. (Those who believe that the Second Amendment is a foundational right and freedom might want to consider my new “limited edition Chuck Norris tribute revolver” on their Christmas wish list.)

Washington has also reduced our freedoms by increasing the threats to our country via the delay in response to our generals’ requests for more troops in Afghanistan, allowing Gitmo detainees and terrorists to come to the U.S., and enabling homegrown terrorists like Maj. Nidal Hasan within the very fabrics of our military.

As I consider these many freedom robbers and the political culprit enabling them all, I can’t help but think of a country song, the lyrics of which are:

What can they all be thinkin’ Wanna take the cross off of the hill
Put away the pledge of allegiance
Lord, just the thought gives me a chill
They can take God off our money but, in the end oh ain’t it funny
How we’re all gonna see him on the Judgment Day
So sing it loud

One more time
Hear what I say
When you got the truth inside, now they can’t take that away
One more time
’cause it ain’t too late
Hold on to what you believe ’cause they can’t take that
They can’t take that away

As I experience the loss of American freedoms, two more thoughts repeatedly come to my mind.

The first is from Daniel Webster, who said, “The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.” Since the Revolution itself, I believe we are in the fight of our lives for American freedoms. I don’t know who said it, but I definitely prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.

The second thought is one attributed to M. Grundler: “It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.”

I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful for American freedoms as I am now. I must admit that I’m also appallingly alarmed that some of them might not exist at all by this time next year. Like a sunset dropping over the horizon of our founders’ dreams, so our freedoms are vanishing from view.

So if you lack something for which to be thankful this Thanksgiving, I’m recommending that we give thanks for our freedoms, for they’re fading fast and possibly soon to join the endangered species lists. The truth is: Food is far more plentiful than our freedoms at this point.

You don’t need to be eloquent, just bow your head and say from your heart this simple prayer a good friend wrote and sent to me:

God is great
Guns are good,
Let us thank them for our food and freedoms.
Amen.

For more Chuck Norris vist: Chuck @ WND

]]> http://thelibertyguardian.com/2009/11/thankful-for-fading-freedoms-chuck-norris/feed/ 0 http://thelibertyguardian.com/2009/11/visiting-west-point-and-major-nidal-hasans-hospital/ http://thelibertyguardian.com/2009/11/visiting-west-point-and-major-nidal-hasans-hospital/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:04:17 +0000 M.J. Harris http://thelibertyguardian.com/?p=268 By Chuck Norris

While the military is still reeling and recovering from the massacre at Fort Hood, my wife, Gena, and I decided to boost the morale of military personnel by visiting the cadets at West Point and the wounded warriors at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston. Little did I know that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the shooter at Ft. Hood, was hospitalized there.

The day before Veterans Day, we visited West Point. We were amazed by its pristine and picturesque setting, 50 miles north of New York on the Hudson River. It was also fascinating to learn more about the academy’s history. From the day of its founding on March 16, 1802, West Point has produced some of our country’s greatest leaders, including Grant and Lee, Pershing and MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton, Schwarzkopf and Petraeus, etc.

It was inspiring to watch the cadets’ unyielding commitment to develop their mind, body and spirit. It was also a joy to see this international Corps of Cadets take a little time even to have fun with my tough-guy image and reputation. For example, one of the senior cadets named Taylor had a picture of me in a frame but with his name inscribed underneath it. Another French cadet, with a very heavy accent, spoke on behalf of other French comrades, and read aloud the Chuck Norris fact, “When an episode of ‘Walker, Texas Ranger
‘ was aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris, just to be on the safe side.” He then followed it up by stating, “We’ll surrender if you take a photo with me and my fellow French cadets!” Of course, I obliged.

There are few words to express the awe and inspiration Gena and I felt as we spent the day with the cadets at West Point. As I sat speaking to a large group of them for about 45 minutes, I was taken aback by their resoluteness and willingness to grow. Guided by the academy’s timeless motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” their passion, discipline and fortitude for building the next generation of leaders was vividly clear and renews my hope for America’s future.

We were equally inspired a couple days later when we went out to Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston to visit with America’s wounded warriors. How can one put into words the pride one feels around these brave men and women? Despite the loss of limbs or suffering from some other sacrifice in battle, their resolve and class was off the charts. While they were enthusiastic and grateful about our visit, it was my wife and I who were truly blessed and inspired by them.

Then came a moment that would have been completely surreal if it were not a staggering reality. As we were visiting the burn unit, we discovered that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the shooter at Fort Hood who murdered 13 and wounded another 40, was being treated in the same facility. To be honest, it made me sick to my stomach and sent shivers of disgust down my spine.

If ever I have experienced a polar opposite, it was in that moment as I was thinking about how Hasan was the sheer antithesis to the character, commitment and service of all the other men and women we met at West Point and Fort Sam Houston. I was equally moved by the civil servants and military medical staff, many of whom knew victims of this assassin, yet turned immediately around and became his caregivers. They are exemplary models of the patriot and Founding Father Thomas Paine, who said, “He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will [eventually] reach himself.”

Two years earlier, we visited Brooke Army Medical Center and recalled meeting a young soldier by the name of David who had been just flown in from Iraq and was in ICU suffering from burns that covered more than 90 percent of his body. Now, two years later, David came walking down the hospital corridor to greet us. We were overjoyed to see him again, and we could tell that he felt the same of us, though his gravely burned head and face was not able to muster even a smile. We again shared some choice, heartfelt moments with David. I couldn’t help but say to him, “David, you are absolutely one of the toughest soldiers I have ever met.” Even then, he tried to smile as he quipped, “Tougher than Chuck Norris?” “Yes,” I replied. “You’re much, much tougher than me!”

It’s in times like these that I’m also grateful for military chaplains and the work of men like retired Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell, who was burned over 60 percent of his body when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 collided into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. After more than 30 surgeries, Lt. Col. Birdwell now uses his life to bring hope to others. His story is also told on Pages 42 through 43 in my friend Randy Alcorn’s latest best-seller and help for those struggling through pain and difficulty, “If God is Good,” a copy of which I will be sending to David along with Lt. Col. Birdwell’s book “Refined by the Fire.” My hope is that Lt. Col. Birdwell might also drop by to visit David when his very busy speaking schedule takes him again by Fort Sam Houston.

The night before we left for Brooke Army Medical Center, and on their own initiative, our 8-year-old twins drew a picture and wrote an encouraging letter that they asked us to give to a wounded warrior. My wife, Gena, gave my daughter’s letter to David. He reached out and received it with his two wrapped and handless arms, paused and then opened and read the letter (in my daughter’s own writing and phonetic spelling, I might add):

Dear Solger:

I am very sorry you are hurt, but thank you for helping our contry. I’m going into military school just like you guys did. I hope you guys get better.

Your friend, Danilee

As the Scripture says, “From the mouths of children and infants, you have created perfect praise.”


Chuck Norris writes weekly articles at World Net Daily

You can see all of his previous articles here: Chuck @ WND

See the Original Article with Pictures from the trip Here

© 2009 Chuck Norris

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