I wanted to bring your attention to a couple of things that everyone really ought to be watching over the coming months with the inauguration of number 44.

Americandaugher.com has posted some thoughts concerning a type of “civilian national security force,” positing the potential for some not-so-desirable effects:

Who would this CNS force be responsible to? What exactly would be their mandate? More importantly, who would have oversight? Lawfully operating within the nation’s borders there is the FBI (incompetent? yes), the National Guard, Coast Guard, state and local police forces.  All of which come under the umbrella of Homeland Security. Millions have been allocated and spent on trying to train every level to detect, prevent, and respond to terrorist attack. What would be the purpose of a national security force equal to our military??  There is only one answer.  Political suppression. Can you say Sturmabteilung, or maybe Schutzstaffel, or 5th Directorate KGB??

However, AmericanThinker is taking a slightly different tact to this, suggesting that the President-elect is really trying to radically expand community-based organizations:

Senator Obama was nearly 17 minutes into his July 2 speech (yet another one where naming Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was required) in Colorado Springs, Colorado when he deviated from his pre-released script and performed without the teleprompter net saying,

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security forcethat’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” (emphasis added)

The immediate context for that amazing statement was a preview of parts of his plan to vastly expand community service opportunities for Americans of nearly all ages. He said,

“People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve.”

What are the stated plans? In effect:

He plans to double the Peace Corps’ budget by 2011, and expand AmeriCorps, USA Freedom Corps, VISTA, YouthBuild Program, and the Senior Corps.  Plus, he proposes to form aClassroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps, Homeland Security Corps, Global Energy Corps, and a Green Jobs Corps.  Here a corps – there a corps – everywhere a corps corps.

All in all, it will be up to us to make sure that Obama doesn’t overstep the bounds of effective federal governing.

On another front, did you notice something strange in the following picture (from Yahoo! News)?

“The Office of the President Elect.” Guess what? There is no such thing (thanks, hotair.com, for the heads up!) and the President-elect has no official stature until January 20, 2009. But, according to the hotair.com posting, “change.gov” is using a top-level .gov domain; that’s only supposed to be reserved for those sites that are truly of the government.

Furthermore, change.gov solicits emails to be put on an emailing list. OK, so, if this is a government-registered entity, then what are those lists going to be used for? Seems like that kind of information should now be public knowledge insofar as what it will be used for, now and into the future.

-Phil

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Update:

 

Representative Paul Broun (R-GA) recently spoke out (via peachpundit via Athens Banner-Herald) about Obama’s CNSF:

AUGUSTA – U.S. Rep. Paul Broun attacked president-elect Barack Obama’s agenda as “Marxist” and derided fellow Republicans for abandoning conservative principles Friday during his first speech since he was re-elected in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District.

“In my opinion, we’ve elected a Marxist to be president of the United States,” Broun, R-Athens, said during a luncheon of the Martinez-Evans Rotary Club at the Doubletree Hotel.

Also, from the AP:

WASHINGTON — A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. 

“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.” 

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military. 

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”

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Update:

 

Now the Georgia Democratic Party is going after Rep. Broun after his comments (as outlined, above) in an apparent case of political “CYA.”