A high percentage of Americans believed race relations would improve with the election of America's first black president. Today, that percentage has dropped dramatically. Could it be because the Obama administration, at every turn, has shamelessly exploited race to further its agenda?

The message of the liberal media/Obama administration tag team comes across loud and clear. If you disagree with Obama, we will brand you a racist and we will hurt you. If this administration was made into a movie it should be titled, “Mr. Chicago Thug Goes to Washington”. Bullying (banks, the auto industry, insurance companies, national Chamber of Commerce, doctors, Fox News and more) appears to come quite naturally to the Obama administration.

The late great Mary Kay Ash said, “The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang". In other words leadership comes from the top down. When SEIU (Service Employees International Union) thugs attacked and beat a black conservative for selling “Don't Tread On Me” flags at a town hall meeting, I believe the thugs felt Obama would approve. Some believe the thugs acted on orders. Folks, they put Kenneth Gladney, a kind and gentle man in the hospital. Kenneth had been laid off his job. He was selling Gadsden Flags simply attempting to earn a living while spreading his belief in conservative principles.

As I said, leadership comes from the top down. I wonder what kind of subliminal message the Obama administration is sending to our kids. I received a letter from the father of a brilliant high school student who dared to write an editorial in her high school newspaper disagreeing with Mrs. Obama. The local Obama supporters reaction to this kid's article is unbelievable, outrageous, over the top and un-American. Their reaction epitomizes the “we're gonna get you” gang mindset and thug aura emanating from the Obama administration. This kid was branded a racist and physically threatened.

Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly introduce to you courageous high school student, Kristen Campbell. Here is her dad's letter which he gave me permission to share publicly.

“Hi Lloyd,

Kristen wrote this editorial (No thanks, Mrs. Obama ..) for her high school newspaper in February of this year. After the article was published, she underwent attacks from African-American students, parents, local church groups, and members of the community. She was called a racist, threatened with a knife, attacked verbally and physically in the hallways at school, and her vehicle tires were slashed in the school parking lot. Members of some local minority organizations even met to discuss how to retaliate against her and a boycott of her school newspaper was launched.

Some parents and grandparents asked the school administration to censor her work so that she would be unable to publish controversial editorials in the future, but Kristen went before the administration and stood her ground. Because of her determination, the administration agreed not to censor her work and to allow her to continue to publish editorials without approval from the principal or school board.

Since then, she has written other conservative editorials and is still getting some resistance from the student body. But she has not backed down.
Since then she gave a follow up speech (Protecting the Pie) on the subject at a state-level 4-H event and at a meeting of the Choctaw Co. Republican Party.

She is passionate about what she believes and is eager and ready to speak anytime she is asked. She is hard-hitting and doesn't mince words. We are very proud of her as you can imagine!

Looking forward to seeing you in Jackson (Tea Party Express rally) on the 8th.”

Tommy and Dee Ann Campbell

Folks, doesn't this young lady remind you of another gutsy and great conservative woman from Alaska? I am extremely proud of Kristen. I reminded Kristen that eagles fly alone. Without question, Kristen Campbell is an eagle. We need more Americans, businesses and institutions to show the same courage and backbone as this high school student. It is time to say “NO!” to the Obama administration. We will be not be silenced. We will not be bullied. We will vote you out in 2010!

Congressman Vern Buchanan (FL-13), just back from a four-day visit to Afghanistan, said he will support an increase in American troops to fight the Taliban and prevent Al Qaeda from regaining a foothold in that country.

Buchanan was among six bipartisan members of Congress who visited Afghanistan over the weekend.  

“The Taliban is a destabilizing force in Afghanistan with ties to Al Qaeda,” said Buchanan.   “They are a threat to the United States.  We need to provide additional combat troops in the region to enable the counterinsurgency strategy focusing both on al Qaeda and the Taliban to succeed.”

Buchanan said the administration should give “strong consideration” to General McChrystal’s request for 40,000 additional troops as well as other experts and that the troop level should be based on “the appropriate level to accomplish their mission.”

The 13th District Congressman and other members of the House Veterans Affairs Committee joined members of the House Armed Services Committee to visit the troops and meet with military officials.

“I am extremely proud of the troops,” said Buchanan.  “They are highly skilled, motivated and confident that with additional troops they can achieve their mission.”  

Buchanan noted that Afghanistan's election commission declared President Hamid Karzai the winner of the election after his challenger pulled out of a runoff that had been scheduled for this coming Saturday.

“With the election behind us, I am hopeful that the country of Afghanistan will move forward in a positive direction to clean up government, reduce corruption and ensure fair and open elections in the future,” added Buchanan. 

Buchanan and U.S. Reps. Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-GU); Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-52nd-CA); Rep. Larry Kissell (D-8th-NC), Rep. John Adler (D-3rd-NJ); and Rep. Christopher Lee (R-NY-26); left Washington, D.C. late Thursday, October 29 and returned early on Monday, November 2.  During the fact-finding trip, they visited Kabul, Regional Command South at Camp Bastion, Regional Command East at Bagram Airbase and Kia.

This is Buchanan’s second trip to Afghanistan.  The two-term Member of Congress went to Iraq and Afghanistan in April of 2007.

Vern with some troopers from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan.

Vern with Sarasota Military Academy graduate, Joe Reynolds, currently serving in Afghanistan.

Vern with graduate of Riverview HS in Sarasota, Audrey Smith, currently serving in Afghanistan.

CBS recently reports on its show "60 Minutes" that Medicare fraud has surpassed the sale of cocaine in South Florida. The crime of choice today is stealing directly from taxpayers. No this is not Congress, they steal from us legally, it called taxation. These are real criminals biking us out of an estimate $60 billion annually.

As 60 Minutes points out:

"In fact, Medicare fraud - estimated now to total about $60 billion a year - has become one of, if not the most profitable, crimes in America.

If you want to find Medicare fraud, the first place you should look is South Florida, where 60 Minutes and correspondent Steve Kroft were told it has pushed aside cocaine as the major criminal enterprise.

It's a quiet crime - there are no sirens or gunfire. The only victims are the American taxpayers, and they don't even know they are being ripped off."

According to the 60 Minutes report, "There's a healthcare fraud industry where people do nothing but recruit patients, get patient lists, find doctors, look on the Internet, find different scams. There are entire groups and entire organizations of people that are dedicated to nothing but committing fraud, finding a better way to steal from Medicare."

What is more interesting is that according to Fortune Magazine the top 14 insurance companies made $8.61 billion in profits in 2008. Now, which is better? I will take the private insurance companies making profits, which by the way on average are 3% of earnings, than a government run healthcare program. Insurance companies would not tolerate this sort of abuse of their system.

The Weekly Standard states:

"So, the next time someone alleges that government-run health care is cheaper because of "lower administrative costs" -- a truly preposterous claim on its surface -- these numbers would be good ones to have at the ready: $60 billion in annual Medicare fraud, $8 billion in combined annual profits for America's ten largest insurance companies."

I agree, how about you?

According to Martha K. Asbury, Director, Administrative Services, Florida Department of Education:

"For the quarter that ended September 30, 2009, the Department of Education reported that a total of 19,553.25 jobs were saved or created with [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] ARRA funds. Please note that these numbers are expected to increase in subsequent quarters and that they are calculated on a full-time equivalence (FTE) basis, meaning for example, that if there are two half-time positions, they will be reported as one job for federal reporting purposes. You may also want to note that the total of the awards to the Florida Department of Education is $3,183,156,730..."

Using my trusty calculator that works out to $162,960.93 per job saved. The Department of Education accounted for 67% of all AARA funded jobs saved in Florida. These are all government jobs, not private sector jobs.

Martha breaks down the education jobs "saved" as follows:

Of the reported jobs, 13,237.70 FTEs were included in the “instructional” category and another 3,081.32 fell into the instructional support category (e.g., pupil personnel, instructional media, instruction and curriculum development, instructional staff training, etc.). The remainder were reported as general support services, plant maintenance and community services.

There is also an “other” category for which 2,436 FTE were reported. The majority of these are instructional personnel in colleges and universities.

Henry Hazlitt, author of "Economics in One Lesson" wrote:

“There is no more persistent and influential faith in the world today than the faith in government spending. Everywhere government spending is presented as a panacea for all our economic ills....An enormous literature is based on this fallacy, and, as so often happens with doctrines of this sort, it has become part of an intricate network of fallacies that mutually support each other....Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for. The world is full of so-called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing. They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because „we owe it to ourselves.‟...such pleasant dreams in the past have always been shattered by national insolvency or a runaway inflation....either immediately or ultimately every dollar of government spending must be raised through a dollar of taxation. Once we look at the matter in this way, the supposed miracles of government spending will appear in another light....With...public works, necessary for their own sake, and defended on that ground alone, I am not here concerned. I am here concerned with public works considered as a means of "providing employment‟ or of adding wealth to the community that it would not have otherwise have had.” (pp. 31-32)

Hazlitt used the example of government using tax dollars and deficit spending to build a bridge (or a road) and explains:

"Therefore, for every public job created by the [government construction of the] bridge project a private job has been destroyed somewhere else....at best there has been a diversion of jobs....More bridge builders; fewer automobile workers, television technicians, clothing workers, farmers....What has happened is merely that one thing has been created instead of others.” (pp. 33-34)

Government does not create or save jobs. Government consumes wealth and redistributes it. As Hazlitt points out, "The government spenders create the very problem of unemployment that they profess to solve....the larger the percentage of the national income taken by taxes the greater the deterrent to private production and employment.”

Today government spending is 28% of our Gross Domestic Product, the highest ever. Enough said. Please take the time to read a synopsis of Henry Hazlitt's book by going here. Read and learn about economics.

It appears that many in Congress and some Americans are focused on whether or not President Obama will increase troop strength in Afghanistan. There are many arguments pro and con. Some, like Vice President Biden, say we must fight a war of attrition against Al Qaeda and others, General McChrystal and Defense Secretary Gates, say we must fight a counterinsurgency against the Taliban. President Obama has called the war in Afghanistan "a war of necessity".

I say that Afghanistan should not be our focus. Iran, by necessity, must be.

My good friend, Red County Diarist, and noted national security expert Gary H. Johnson, Jr. wrote a seminal piece titled, "Obama's Acceptance of Iranian Hegemony?". Gary asks:

"Does [President] Obama accept the new Iranian hegemony of the region? Has he pushed for a Israeli-Palestinian peace on the 1967 borders? Has he sought to respect the Iranian state's rights?"

It appears to date that the answers to all of Gary's questions are yes. I believe President Obama and his national security team have accepted that Iran, according to Gary, "is the new superpower on the block." Iran has replaced Israel as the major player in the Middle East. With Iran testing and deploying a nuclear weapon that position will only be reinforced.

So, what is our end game in Afghanistan? What is our end game in the Middle East? What is our end game in Iran?

Let me present a strategy you have not heard discussed because some believe it is both undo able and unthinkable. I believe the real war of necessity is against Iran not Afghanistan. I believe our strategy must be to first destabilize Iran by turning our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan toward Iran while increasing our navel presence off the Iranian coastline to stop the flow of refined petroleum products and other goods necessary to the Iranian economy.

I believe there is a clear and present danger to the U.S. and our interests from Iranian weapons of mass destruction. I believe there is a significant internal distrust and dislike of the existing regime, as demonstrated by the recent election protests in Iran. I believe there is a significant faction in Iran that is pro-West and pro-American. I believe that Iran, like Iraq, is a more friendly battle ground than Afghanistan by playing to our strengths - air power and a conventional military second to none. Afghanistan on the other hand plays to our weaknesses, a diluted nation based on tribalism and a inhospitable terrain. If you don't believe me just ask the Russians.

Iran has the perfect terrain for our military forces. Iran has well developed infrastructure, an intelligent populous, a large population of young people interested in the West and making a career for themselves. Iran also sits on enormous oil reserves that can sustain it in the mid to long term. Afghanistan has none of these things. 

Our military will win any force on force battle against the Republican Guard and those elements of the Iranian Army loyal to the Ayatollahs. Our air power will quickly neuter any Iranian threat from their air or naval forces. A naval blockade coupled with allied military forces poised on both of Iran's boarders would be formidable.

The risks are not as great as the rewards for taking action now, before Iran has fielded a nuclear weapon.

The down side is we will be condemned by Russia and China as imperialists. There will be demonstrations around the world against the United States. Oil prices will sky rocket in the short term while the Iranian regime teeters and finally topples. We will lose soldiers, some aircraft and some naval ships.

The result will be a free and democratic Iran to equal or exceed what we are seeing in Iraq. We will see a nation state that is a stabilizing force in the Middle East rather than the largest state sponsor of terrorism and radical Islam. We will see a victory similar to what we saw in Iraq, with Iraqis joining together to to share in the peace and wealth of that nation.

That is worth any risk, don't you think? Iran is the true war of necessity for the United States and the West.

I'm going to let the cat out of the bag. I confess. The bulk of the folks attending the Tea Parties across America are good old fashion God fearing Christians. They work hard, love their families and their country. If they are racist, you can not prove it by me.

I'm traveling across America on Tea Party Express II. The mostly white audiences at every rally embrace me with open arms, especially after hearing me proclaim myself to be an American rather than a politically correct hyphenated African American. These people love me and call me brother because we share a love for our country and the principles which have made her great. At every rally, I feel like I am with family.

Countless numbers of attendees have told me they are praying for me. Somehow, I don't think you would hear such a comment at rallies hosted by the Left. Rallies hosted by the Left display very few, if any, America flags. Nor would they ever consider honoring our troops. Our Tea Party Express rallies enjoy a sea of American flags. We also feature a tremendously moving tribute to our veterans, active troops and their families at every rally.

In every city, we (the Tea Party Express team) hear anger, stories of financial suffering and fear of the Obama administration. Many, especially the senior Americans and elderly immigrants who have lived under tyranny, are heartbroken over the Obama administration's disdain for our Constitution and race to socialism.

Our mission on the Tea Party Express is to give hope and inspire these patriots to fight back. And they are fighting back Big Time; everyone in their own small or large way.

A 74 year old woman has just begun writing a weekly conservative column in her local newspaper. An elderly gentleman has launched an organization to fight corrupt politicians. He currently has two members. Large numbers of first timer conservative candidates for political office are spouting up all over the country. Moms across America are organizing to restore and preserve conservative values for their kids. Thousands are writing hand written letters to Washington.

An elder gentleman who survived cancer four times told me, “My time is about over. I joined the Tea Party Movement for my grandchildren”.

At our Tea Party Express rally in Carson City, NV, it was freezing cold. Still, hundreds showed up. A gentleman gave free cups of coffee to everyone. His coffee machine was powered by a generator. Again, there was that feeling of family; we're all in this together.

In Portland, OR, the hall where we held our Tea Party Express rally was packed with 3000 patriots with another 1000 outside. Everyone was polite and united in our cause; Take Back America!

Folks, this movement is totally passion driven. No political party, marketing firm or single organization could have started and sustained it. People have begun to realize America made a huge mistake electing Barack Hussein Obama. Despite being ignored by most of the main stream media, the Tea Party Movement is growing.

All of the speakers and performers on the Tea Party Express have received threats and hate mail. The Left knows we are inspiring and energizing the patriots. They want to shut us up. I am extremely proud to be numbered amongst this great team of patriots committed to God and country.

At every rally I perform my original,”American Tea Party Anthem”. Then I sing my parody to the song, “New York, New York” titled, “2010”. To make it fun, I ask a dozen ladies from the audience to come on stage. The sound man hits the music and the women instinctively form a chorus line. The audience goes crazy when I sing the lyrics, “We're gonna vote them out...and Take Back America in 2010.”

The first Tea Party Express tour focused on the big cities major markets. This second tour is through the heart land small towns. Still, the crowds have been surprisingly large. People are desperate. They need hope. Somehow, we feel our purpose is stronger and more important than our first tour.

It has been difficult and uncomfortable. And yet, we feel honored to do it; traveling, meeting, inspiring and bringing hope to our brother and sister patriots across America. We truly are all in this together.