My Fellow Patriots,
On Saturday, the House passed the Health Care Bill that would takeover our health care and 1/6 of the economy! However, the war is far from being over. This is just one battle. Do you remember Bunker Hill in the Revolutionary War? The British took the hill, because we ran out of ammunition. While the result was a victory for the British, they suffered a large amount of losses: over 800 wounded and 226 killed, including a notably large number of officers. The battle is seen as an example of a Pyrrhic victory, as while their immediate objective (the capture of Bunker Hill) was achieved, the loss of nearly a third of their forces did not significantly alter the state of siege. Meanwhile, Colonial forces were able to retreat and regroup in good order having suffered few casualties.

On Saturday, we ran short on votes. The war for freedom and liberty is far from being over. The Liberal Left who pushed through this bill know that it is has cost them more than what it was worth. Their actions tonight will be the reason for the loss in 2010 and 2012 – if we can regroup and fight back. Yes, we must regroup. Now is the time to fight back. They are weak. Have you forgotten that WE won last Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey!

America’s fight for freedom has always been won by hard work and perseverance. On September 23, 1779, John Paul Jones fought one of the bloodiest engagements in naval history. Jones struggled with the 44-gun Royal Navy frigate Serapis, and although his own vessel was burning and sinking, Jones would not accept the British demand for surrender, replying, “I have not yet begun to fight.” More than three hours later, Serapis surrendered and Jones took command.

Don’t Give Up – Keep On Fighting!!!
Your Brother In Liberty,
Everett Wilkinson

Join The Fight at SouthFloridaTeaParty.org

Gov. Charlie Crist has had a bad week. The once teflon governor is struggling to regain lost ground and he's doing it by attacking the record of his U.S. Senate primary opponent Marco Rubio.

Finding it hard to promote a conservative record of his own, Crist is trying to highlight what he hopes will be negative inconsistencies in Rubio's voting record -- a ploy to make conservatives think Rubio is a moderate.

On Sunday, Crist's comm shop sent out an email of the St. Petersburg Times article by Beth Reinhard of the Miami Herald titled, "Rubio's Immigration Stance Faces Scrutiny".

May I mention, this is the same Beth Reinhard who stood next to me during a private reception for Crist in August. Reinhard gushed, smiled and winked at Crist as he called her name out four times from the podium. Suffice it to say, Crist seemed pretty happy with the good press he's receiving from Ms. Reinhard.

According to sources, last week the Crist camp sent an email to a small group of reporters scrutinizing many of Rubio's votes and in some cases non-votes, Rubio cast while he served as Speaker of the Florida House.

Lets ask Reinhard if she was on the short list of reporters who received that email last week.

But Crist didn't stop there. The Crist campaign also sent the media a list of names and contact information for folks like NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, and others who would be more than willing to give an on-the-record interview.

"He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,'' said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who saw Rubio do little to help pass a bill allowing employees to bring guns to work. "He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk." Hammer stated in an interview with the St. Petersburg Times 11/8/09.

Fact: Rubio has a 100% rating from the NRA. Its no surprise that Hammer, a lobbyist, would find fault in Rubio's voting record, she supported the idea of Crist appointing himself to the U.S. Senate.

Fact: The NRA also supported Dede Scozzafava in NY-23.

The hypocrisy doesn't stop there. Last year the St. Petersburg Times accused Rubio of being too conservative.

"Rubio, the young Republican speaker from Miami, has been a particular disappointment...Rubio would have had more success if he had learned from Crist's populism and willingness to compromise instead of clinging to the hard-edged conservatism of his mentor, former Gov. Jeb Bush." (Editorial, St. Petersburg Times, 4/27/08)

Further, the St. Petersburg Times contradicts themselves by trying to connect Rubio to the Ray Samson scandal. “Rubio says he knew nothing about it, but his hand-picked budget chief, Ray Sansom, was able to funnel $35 million to a Panhandle college — actions that led to a grand jury indictment against Sansom.”

Earlier This Year, The St. Petersburg Times noted “No Evidence Rubio Knew” About The Sansom Appropriation. “There's no evidence Rubio knew that Ray Sansom had budgeted $6 million for a donors' aircraft hangar in the guise of funding a college educational facility, as alleged in the indictment. That budget item apparently raised no red flags with the speaker, and his rival for the Republican Senate nomination, Gov. Charlie Crist, declined to veto that appropriation despite it being flagged as a ‘turkey’ by Florida TaxWatch.” (“Rubio Defends His Record,” St. Petersburg Times, 6/2/09)

Hypocrisy at its best. Most would like to see Reinhard and the St. Petersburg Times convicted of journalist malpractice.

Make no mistake, the Crist camp is desperate to define Rubio's candidacy and make this a race between two moderates. But Crist can't do it alone, he doesn't have the credibility. So he's relying on main stream media and a few rogue supporters to do it for him.

Just like the Rich Heffley scandal and the fake website, this too will backfire.

This past Thursday 13 American Soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded at a horrific mass shooting at US Army installation, Ft Hood Texas. As I watched in horror and then anger I recalled my two years of final service in the Army as a Battalion Commander at Ft Hood, 2002-2004.

My wife and two daughters were stunned at the incident having lived on the post in family housing.

A military installation, whether it is Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, or Coast Guard, is supposed to be a safe sanctuary for our Warriors and their families. It is intended to provide a home whereby our “Band of Brothers and Sisters” can find solace and bond beyond just the foxhole but as family units.

A military installation is supposed to be a place where our Warriors train for war, to serve and protect our Nation.

On Thursday, 5 November 2009 Ft Hood became a part of the battlefield in the war against Islamic totalitarianism and state sponsored terrorism.

There may be those who feel threatened by my words and would even recommend they not be uttered. To those individuals I say step aside because now is not the time for cowardice. Our Country has become so paralyzed by political correctness that we have allowed a vile and determined enemy to breach what should be the safest place in America, an Army post.

We have become so politically correct that our media is more concerned about the stress of the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The misplaced benevolence intending to portray him as a victim is despicable. The fact that there are some who have now created an entire new classification called; “pre-virtual vicarious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)” is unconscionable.

This is not a “man caused disaster”. It is what it is, an Islamic jihadist attack.

We have seen this before in 2003 when a SGT Hasan of the 101^st Airborne Division (Air Assault) threw hand grenades and opened fire into his Commanding Officer’s tent in Kuwait. We have seen the foiled attempt of Albanian Muslims who sought to attack Ft Dix, NJ. Recently we saw a young convert to Islam named Carlos Bledsoe travel to Yemen, receive terrorist training, and return to gun down two US Soldiers at a Little Rock, Arkansas Army recruiting station. We thwarted another Islamic terrorist plot in North Carolina which had US Marine Corps Base, Quantico as a target.

What have we done with all these prevalent trends? Nothing.

What we see are recalcitrant leaders who are refusing to confront the issue, Islamic terrorist infiltration into America, and possibly further into our Armed Services. Instead we have a multiculturalism and diversity syndrome on steroids.

Major Hasan should have never been transferred to Ft Hood, matter of fact he should have been Chaptered from the Army. His previous statements, poor evaluation reports, and the fact that the FBI had him under investigation for jihadist website posting should have been proof positive.

However, what we have is a typical liberal approach to find a victim, not the 13 and 30 Soldiers and Civilian, but rather the poor shooter. A shooter who we are told was a great American, who loved the Army and serving his Nation and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) stating that his actions had nothing to do with religious belief.

We know that Major Hasan deliberately planned this episode; he did give away his possessions. He stood atop a table in the confined space of the Soldier Readiness Center shouting “Allahu Akhbar”, same chant as the 9-11 terrorists and those we fight against overseas in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of operation.

No one in leadership seems willing to sound the alarm for the American people; they are therefore complicit in any future attacks. Our Congress should suspend the insidious action to vote on a preposterous and unconstitutional healthcare bill and resolve the issue of “protecting the American people”.

The recent incidents in Dearborn Michigan, Boston Massachusetts, Dallas Texas, and Chicago Illinois should bear witness to the fact that we have an Islamic terrorism issue in America. And don’t have CAIR call me and try to issue a vanilla press statement; they are an illegitimate terrorist associated organization which should be disbanded.

We have Saudi Arabia funding close to 80% of the mosques in the United States, one right here in South Florida, Pompano Beach. Are we building churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia? Are “Kaffirs” and “Infidels” allowed travel to Mecca?

So much for peaceful coexistence.

Saudi Arabia is sponsoring radical Imams who enter into our prisons and convert young men into a virulent Wahabbist ideology….one resulting in four individuals wanting to destroy synagogues in New York with plastic explosives. Thank God the explosives were dummy. They are sponsoring textbooks which present Islamic centric revisionist history in our schools.

We must recognize that there is an urgent need to separate the theo-political radical Islamic ideology out of our American society. We must begin to demand surveillance of suspected Imams and mosques that are spreading hate and preaching the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic……that speech is not protected under First Amendment, it is sedition and if done by an American treason.

There should not be some 30 Islamic terrorist training camps in America that has nothing to do with First Amendment, Freedom of Religion. The Saudis are not our friends and any American political figure who believes such is delusional.

When tolerance becomes a one way street it certainly leads to cultural suicide. We are on that street. Liberals cannot be trusted to defend our Republic, because their sympathies obviously lie with their perceived victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.

I make no apologies for these words, and anyone angered by them, please, go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the real victims. The tragedy at Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen. Consider now the feelings of those there and on every military installation in the world. Consider the feelings of the Warriors deployed into combat zones who now are concerned that their loved ones at home are in a combat zone.

Ft Hood suffered an Islamic jihadist attack, stop the denial, and realize a simple point.

The reality of your enemy must become your own.

Nov.4^th, Wichita, KS – The crowd of about a thousand applauded warmly for my performances of the “Tea Party Anthem” and “2010”. After the rally, I was scheduled to leave my bus tour family for a day to fly to Washington DC. I had been asked to sing “God Bless America” at a huge rally protesting the latest health care nightmare bill at the U.S. Capitol.

At the Wichita rally a gentlemen and his wife offered to give us a ride to the airport in their pick up truck; Amy Kremer, founder of Tea Party Patriots, Deborah Johns, spokesperson for Tea Party Express and myself.

Like every rally, I signed several autographs, posed for pictures and shook hands. I called the tour my “Million Handshake March”.

With tears in her eyes, a middle aged white woman grabbed my hand with both of hers. She pressed something in my palm. “I wish I could give more. I just want to contribute to your efforts. God bless you”. With a line building behind her, without looking, I put her gift in my vest pocket and continued shaking hands.

“Excuse me Lloyd, but we have to get you to the airport”, said Jimmy, our bus manager.

Then, a heavy gentleman who was missing his front teeth pulling up on his bicycle. “Mr. Marcus! I rode all the way across town to meet you. Thank you for your columns and for what you are doing for our country. I love you and I am praying for you. You're my brother.”

I give my sincere white brother a hug, got in the pick up truck and rode to the airport to catch my flight to Washington, DC.

I only mention race because I am black. The Obama administration and mainstream media continues to shamefully portray the tea party protesters as racists.

On the plane, I reached into my pocket and found a five dollar bill. It was from the tearful woman in Wichita. I got the feeling that given her financial situation, it was a huge gift. And why did she feel the need to give me anything? I thought of the woman in the Bible, who also gave in her own humble way. Thank you very much, my Five Dollar Lady.

There are a few lesson’s we should take from NY-23. Bloggers, conservative activists and talk radio hosts made this race notable and forced the GOP establishment to open its eyes to what the base really wants. The mainstream media was too busy reporting the GOPs intra-party fighting to cover Dede Scozzafava’s position on the issues.

This race especially resonated with conservatives in Florida, where the same forces are in play. For months, the NRSC has been cramming Gov. Charlie Crist down voter’s throats proclaiming he’s the “only candidate who can win”.

In NY-23, I wondered if we really accomplished anything. What’s the point of trading one liberal vote for another. I posed that question to fellow blogger Erick Erickson at RedState. His reply “The GOP now knows it will either win with us or loose without us.”

Gov. Haley Barbour weighted in on NY-23 during the RGA victory conference call. “The state chairman in New York allowed a group of county chairman to decide who the nominee was. If that happened in Mississippi I would be mad too.”

And that’s exactly what the Florida GOP chairman, and the NRSC are trying to do -- pick the nominee and discourage a true conservative -- Marco Rubio from running.

But maybe the tide is changing. After the stinging defeat in NY-23 the GOP establishment seems eager to sooth the anger proliferating among conservatives.

Months after endorsing Crist, Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the NRSC made this statement today in an interview with ABC News about the Senate race in Florida.

"People shouldn't read too much into endorsements by the NRSC. We are encouraging people we think are the strongest candidates to run.", said Cornyn.

"We will not spend money in a contested primary. There's no incentive for us to weigh in," said Cornyn, R-Texas. Now that Crist’s poll numbers are in a free fall, I guess not.

Crist’s approval rating had consistently averaged around 68 percent for much of the year, but a St. Petersburg Times poll released Oct. 31^st finds that only 42 percent of likely Florida voters think Charlie Crist is doing a good or excellent job as governor -- a 26 percent drop.

“Let the voters decide who the nominees will be.” said Barbour. Barbour said the nominee should not be chosen in a “back room deal” and stated the New York Republican state chairman had recently been removed over Dede Scozzafava’s nomination.

Is there room in the Republican Party for moderates? The question is -- is there room for conservatives in the Republican Party?

Column courtesy of Jim Gibbs:

Did you ever run out of gas and have to push your car to the nearest gas station? Up an incline? At night in the rain? Did you think about how much you’d pay someone to come along and give you a lift, fill your tank, or just help you push? My bet is that you’d have been happy to open your billfold or purse and empty the contents. On the other hand, have you ever considered how little gasoline it takes to power your car for miles at a time, up and down hills, at speeds of 70 mph or more?

The amazing fact is that with little more gasoline than would fill a coffee cup, you can cover a mile in less than a minute, at a cost of about a dime. (less than a tenth of what you’d pay for a cup of Starbucks). So much energy is contained in gasoline that few other available energy sources can match it.  Consider the following:

• Gasoline delivers 15 times the energy of an equal weight of TNT.
• Gasoline has 1000 times as much energy as an equal weight of flashlight batteries, and 100 times as much as an equal weight of expensive computer batteries.
• Liquid hydrogen, the key fuel for a future “hydrogen economy” has only about 20% of the energy per gallon that gasoline has. 

What about other energy sources? Here is a comparison with four important alternative fuels. For the same weight, gasoline delivers approximately:

• 2 times the energy of coal
• 2 times the energy of methanol (wood alcohol)
• 1.5 times the energy of ethanol (drinking alcohol)
• 1.1 times the energy of butanol (a likely future biofuel)

When thinking about alternatives to petroleum and other fossil fuels, it is important to know how the United States uses its current supplies. About 5% is used to manufacture materials such as fertilizer, chemicals, and plastics. The rest is used to generate energy. Here’s roughly how that breaks down for the U.S. use of fuel:

• 28% is used for transportation (gasoline and jet fuel).
• 40% is used to generate electric power.
• 20% is used for direct heating (natural gas, coal)
• 32% is used by industry.

These numbers add to more than 100% because of overlap; some of the electric power, for example, is used by industry.

Equally important is the broad spectrum of U.S. energy sources:

• 29% from imported oil
• 11% from domestic oil
• 24% from coal
• 19% from natural gas (methane)
• 8% from nuclear
• 8% from all others (solar, hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal)

Note that even doubling any of the alternative sources of fossil fuels does little to reduce our overall dependence on fossil fuels. 

What about energy costs? Not all energy sources are equally expensive; in fact for the same energy, coal in the United States is 20 times cheaper than gasoline. This is why coal reserves of the U.S., with an estimated 800 year supply, are likely to be an important source of our transportation and power requirements into the far distant future. 

The following list compares the cost of energy per kilowatt-hour from various sources. The list does not include the cost of the plants and the power lines that deliver the energy:

• Coal: 0.4-0.8 cents ($40-80 per ton)
• Natural gas: 3.4 cents ($10 per thousand cubic feet)
• Gasoline: 11 cents ($3.70 per gallon)
• Car battery: 21 cents ($50 per battery to replace)
• Computer battery: $4 ($100 per battery to replace)
• AAA battery: $1,000 ($1.50 per battery)  

Obviously, greatly increasing alternatives at the expense of fossil fuels will take time and substantially increase energy costs. In the meantime, it is in consumers’ best interests for U.S. energy producers to continue to develop all possible energy sources as rapidly and effectively as possible.

Proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress, such as the pending “Cap and trade” bill, will do little to change our nation’s dependence on fossil fuels or reduce carbon emissions, but will increase costs of energy, increase dependence on imported supplies, greatly inhibit producers’ ability to search for and produce energy, reduce employment of industry workers, and impose greater tax burdens on the consumer. 

For the statistics quoted herein, I am indebted to Dr. Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkley, for his excellent and readable recently published book, Physics for Future Presidents.      

James A. (Jim) Gibbs is the Chairman of the Board of Five States Energy Company, LLC. Jim established Five States Energy Company in 1985 to expand the scale of his ongoing business of purchasing producing oil and gas properties. Before forming Five States, Gibbs operated his business as an independent oil and gas producer and consulting geologist. In addition to his exploration activities, Gibbs actively sought opportunities to purchase quality, long-life producing oil and gas properties.