Well, Washington got that straightened out. I revealed Wednesday (last week) that powerful pressure of the highest order was brought to bear to stop the (Amish) amendment to the DoD appropriation bill to rein in the NSA. The pressure worked as could be predicted. The vote was 205-217. Anti National Security Democrats were generally for the amendment and Constitutional TEA Party type conservatives, like me, were for the amendment. Washington insiders of both parties would be for the unlimited and uncontrolled NSA. It appears We the People are not in control of the U.S. House and Senate. It appears the powers at the DoD and clandestine agencies are in control. It seems that anyone who would not trust the IRS could simply not trust the NSA either.

To illustrate the pro-NSA vote (against the amendment), let me use the argument of the only Member of Congress that is a personal friend of mine, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. She and I worked together for Conservative causes years before she went to Congress in 2007. I believe I can argue with confidence she would never have voted against the Amish amendment before she went to Washington. Remember, Congresswoman Bachmann is the founder and Chairman of the Tea party Caucus.

Here, in part, is Bachmann’s argument on the House floor before the vote a week ago.

“A false narrative has emerged that the Federal Government is taking in American phone calls. That’s not true. A false narrative has emerged that the Federal Government is taking in the content of the American emails. It’s not true. That’s not happening. We need to deal in facts. The facts are real and the facts are these: the only people who have benefited from the revelation of classified information … is that those who are engaged in Islamic Jihad are the only ones who have been benefitted and those we seek to protect have not. Consider this, There is more information contained in the phone book that sets on your kitchen counter about each one of us than exists in the National security data base that we’re talking about today.”

This is a deeply flawed—nearly incoherent—statement. The very system my friend defends grew because of a false narrative that began nearly 12 years ago. The Congresswoman got her facts from NSA Director General Keith Alexander or his office. It is silly to believe or ask anyone else to believe there is more information in your phone book than the NSA—and many other agencies—have. It is very likely that some federal agencies have had or now have Congresswoman Bachmann’s phones tapped.

Forget about Edward Snowden. The real facts have been presented for the past 9 years by a small courageous group of whistleblowers—particularly William Binney and Thomas Drake.

How did Michele Bachmann and so many other American patriots get taken into the real false narrative? To understand we must go back to the attack on America and freedom itself by Islamic Jihadists September 11, 2001.

President Bush gave the Nation (and the World) exactly what was needed in his address before a joint session of Congress just 9 days later. He gathered the nation with the strength, resolve and clarity equal to the terrible and cowardly attack on America. His message was reassuring and inspiring. He laid out a vision for the road ahead. Unfortunately the seeds of the false narrative were in the Presidents historic speech. President Bush said in part:

“Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda (the terrorist network associated with bin Laden), but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated. Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our Greif has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”

“On September 11, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. … All of this was brought upon us in a single day and night fell on a different world; a world where freedom itself is under attack.”

“Americans are asking, ‘Who attacked our country?’ All the evidence points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are some of the murderers indicted for the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole. Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.”

The President went on to define al Qaeda and the Afghanistan Taliban. He demanded the Taliban completely destroy al Qaeda and provide America verification. Then he said of the Taliban, “These demands are not negotiable. They will hand over al Qaeda or they will share in their fate.”

“With every atrocity [terrorist groups and their supporters] hope that America grows fearful retreating from the world and forsaking our friends.”

“Americans are asking, ‘How will we fight and win this war?’ We will direct every resource at out command; every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.” … “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make—either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorists or terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

“It is natural to wonder if America’s future is one of fear. Some speak of an age of terror. I know there struggles ahead and dangers to face. But this country will define our times not be defined by them.”

“Great harm has been done to us. We have suffered great loss and in our grief and anger, we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us.” … “Freedom and fear; justice and cruelty have always been at war. And we know that God is not neutral between them.”

After his address one commentator, General Norman Schwarzkopf, declared the President “didn’t just draw a line in the sand, he bulldozed a trench!” I felt the same. To this day a consider it a Providential blessing that George W. Bush was President on September 11, 2001 and in the ensuing weeks and months.

But that speech opened the road to unfettered unconstitutional actions unleashed on Americans by hidden agencies and forces. It also led to a false National Security narrative that, to be safe from terror, our government must consider all Americans suspects. The reason, in hindsight, is the suffocating blanket that is the false principal of Political Correctness. Political Correctness does not allow America to call our enemy by its name—Islamic Jihad. Here are the infected passages in President Bush’s speech and my perspective gained from nearly 12 years of study and experience:

“The Terrorists practice a fringe form of Islamic extremism that has been rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority of Muslim clerics—a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teaching of Islam. The terrorist directive commands them to kill Christians and Jews; to kill all Americans and make no distinctions between military and civilians including women and children.”

No, they do not practice a fringe form of Islam. The Jihadists are following Muslim scholars beginning with the top Sunni scholar in the world, Sheikh Yusuf Al Qaradawi, who is also the top religious authority of the CAIR sponsoring Muslim Brotherhood. They practice the Islamic scholarship that is studied and taught by Sunni Imams worldwide from the Classic Manuel of Islamic Sacred Law (Sunni), Reliance of the Traveller by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri. No, the teachings of Islam are not peaceful. The terrorist directive is exactly the core teaching of Sunni Islam.

“I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It is practiced freely by millions of Americans. And by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful and those that commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme Allah. The terrorist are traitors to their own faith—trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.”

The teachings of Islam are not good and peaceful. Those that practice any and every form of Jihad do not see their action against freedom as evil. They see Islamic repression as good and freedom as evil. The terrorists, while they are hijackers of airliners, are not hijackers of their faith but rather faithful practitioners of Islam itself.

“We will direct every resource at out command; every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war…”

“No one should be singled out because of their ethnic background or religious faith.”

What we, the American Government, failed to ever commence was this: to simply focus on young Muslim men (and occasionally women). Instead, we focused on Americans. Here is where we went wrong and where many of our friends in elected office and public service, like my friend Congresswoman Bachmann,  developed the false narrative that to be secure, we must treat airline travelers, and others, as security risks and we must, with the highest level of classification, conduct secret spy programs on the American people. My fellow Americans, we must stop spying on patriotic citizens and, with effective profiling, focus on the Jihadists.

Noting the outpouring of support from around the world, the President mistakenly included prayers at a Mosque in Cairo. Those prayers, in Arabic, were for the Jihadists, not for America or the freedom it represents.

Towards the end of his address, the President rallied the country with a series of “we will come togethers.” Notably, one was, “We will come together to strengthen our intelligence capabilities to know the plans of terrorists before they act and to find them before they strike.”

We now know that we collect and store data and personal information on all Americans. We also know the spying and data collection system failed to acknowledge the obvious danger of domestic Jihadist, Army Major Nidal Hasan. To this day, it is officially and shamefully labeled, “workplace violence.” We know spying on all Americans failed to stop Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the Boston Marathon bombers. In fact, America looked silly and inept, failing—even with a warning from the Russians of all people.

Then there is the matter of comprehensive immigration reform. We are told there are 11 million “undocumented workers” (illegal aliens) living in the shadows here in America. We are told we must pass comprehensive immigration reform so we can find them. We are told some 40% of them are here illegally because they have overstayed their visas. Yet we are supposed to believe that, if we simply accept government spying on all of us, terrorists won’t have a chance. To a rational mind it seems that if spying on all of us will stop virtually every terrorist, we could find those elusive “undocumented workers”—even in the shadows.

Let us begin today to reverse the false narrative foisted on us by Islamic Jihad and Political Correctness.