Exposing the “Living Document” Lie

Despite all historical evidence to the contrary, it is often claimed that the Constitution is a “living document” that is easily malleable through semantics and modern desires for extended federal power.

This is the view that saturates public schools, the mainstream media, law schools, and politicians. We are even sometimes told that a primary benefit of the United States Constitution is that it can be so easily manipulated at the will of politicians and judges.

However, this view flies directly against the evidence of history, and disputes the words of those who supported the document during the ratification debates. After all, the Constitution only provided the general government the powers “expressly delegated to it” according to Edmund Randolph, who had the duty of explaining the Constitution to Virginia’s Richmond Convention.

Similarly, when naysayers in South Carolina raised the same concerns of unlimited powers, Charles Pinckney rebuked their claims strongly by echoing these sentiments and insisting, “we certainly reserve to ourselves every power and right not mentioned in the Constitution.”[1] This clarification was not an isolated phenomenon; the Constitution was described this way in all states by its vigilant supporters.

The plain understanding that the Constitution only gave the general government the powers that were specifically enumerated was not a “theory” during the Constitution’s writing or adoption by the states. On the contrary, it was the only understanding reached by the states, and held until modern reinterpretations of the Constitution took hold. From the origin of the ratification debates, James Wilson’s “State House Yard Speech” confirms this to be the case. To the accusation that the Constitution gave the general government powers which were not explicitly stated, Wilson responded to such an assertion by noting that “everything which is not given is reserved.” Wilson said that power in the Constitution is not granted by “tacit implication, but from the positive grant expressed in the instrument of the union.”[2]

The constitutional model of Britain was considered insufficient in the states because it did not bring about a restricted centralized authority that was held down by specified powers. Britain’s constitution is a series of documents, traditions, and court decisions, which in summation characterize the “British Constitution.” Thomas Paine wrote in Common Sense that he found this type of constitutional framework to be “subject to convulsions.” This was stated categorically. After all, it could not be denied that the British government (kings such as John, Charles Stuart, and James II) consistently worked to undermine the liberties clearly spelled out in The Magna Carta, Petition of Right, and English Bill of Rights, and other constitutional documents and happenings.

Britain had a legislature (Parliament), an executive (the king), and a judiciary (the royal courts), so this type of governmental structure can exist without the necessity of a written constitution. Instead of giving the government palpable power to do everything, our founders had the ingenious wherewithal to draft a Constitutional model that is instead based on powers that are explicitly spelled out, chiefly in Article I, Section 8.

If the Constitutional model was truly that of a “living document,” an inquisitive mind may question why the founders made the document extremely difficult to alter through the amendment process notated in Article V. The notion that the states will easily come to the same conclusion on adjusting the Constitution is a faulty one. Obtaining sanction from 38 states on any topic, constitutional issues notwithstanding, is no easy feat. This limitation can be considered as a strong barrier of obstruction that is nearly impossible to circumvent.

It is irrefutable that founders made the document difficult to alter for a reason. Those who espouse views to the contrary do not seek to consider the document “living” because it can be changed; they strive to misinterpret specific clauses within the document to justify actions of an almost unlimited variety, using such content to draw upon a vast reservoir of untapped power. Thomas Jefferson wrote that by doing so, Congress “is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” The tendency to do so was considered constitutionally erroneous and invalid.

Those who advocate the “living document” doctrine typically point to several clauses within the Constitution’s text to justify these views. These clauses are sometimes referred to as the “elastic clauses.” Patrick Henry, a persuasive opponent of the United States Constitution, called them “sweeping clauses” because he believed they would provide overwhelming power to the general government and act to eradicate the power of the states. When it came to Henry and many other voices of opposition, the antagonists were swiftly rebuked by those who were responsible for bringing the states to an understanding of what the Constitution did.

One of the “sweeping clauses” is the Necessary and Proper Clause, which is sometimes used by government to justify a variety of “implied” powers. James Wilson, a leading supporter of the Constitution in Pennsylvania, explained that this prose did no such thing. Wilson stated: “the concluding clause, with which so much fault has been found, gives no more, or other powers; nor does it in any degree go beyond the particular enumeration.”[3] The clause’s text solidifies this view, and is written in a distinctively clear manner: “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers [emphasis mine].” The Necessary and Proper Clause only gives Congress the ability to perform tasks incidental to carry out the specified enumerated powers. In Virginia, Edmund Randolph responded directly to Patrick Henry regarding the clause. Randolph said: “The gentleman supposes, that complete and unlimited legislation is vested in the United States. This supposition is founded on false reasoning…in the general constitution, the powers are enumerated.”[4]

The General Welfare Clause is another portion of prose which is used to rationalize the living document model, the portion of Article I, Section 8 which gives Congress the power to “provide for the common Defence and general Welfare.” Unfortunately, the modern understanding of this phraseology is completely divergent from the clear meaning of the expression at the time. The clear legal meaning of the phrase, borrowed from the Articles of Confederation, meant a small subset of duties each individual state considered appropriate to delegate to a separate authority. The states gave those powers to the general government out of convenience.

Roger Sherman, who moved to have the phrase added to the Constitution, is the best and most persuasive voice of clarification of the often misunderstood clause. The expression was added on August 25th in Philadelphia, so it could be connected with the clause for laying taxes and duties.[5] In other words, he wanted to make it explicit that taxes could only be collected for the specified powers.

Sherman was recorded as having made the observation that the “objects of the Union” were “few.”[6] Sherman listed “defence against foreign danger,” defense “against internal disputes & a resort to force,” “defence against foreign danger,” and “regulating foreign commerce & drawing revenue from it” as the powers of the general government. This is entirely consistent with Madison’s words from The Federalist and other sources, and was the conclusive understanding that the other representatives held in the Philadelphia Convention and the state conventions afterward. Historian Brion McClanahan writes that the initial proposal for insertion of this clause was rejected because it was considered to be redundant and unnecessary, passing only after Sherman’s persistence.[7]

Madison wrote this about the General Welfare Clause’s plain meaning when objecting to a 1792 bill which called for subsidized fisheries. The General Welfare Clause was cited as justification to pass such a bill. Madison responded:

“I, sir, have always conceived – I believe those who proposed the Constitution conceived, and it is still more fully known, and more material to observe that those who ratified the Constitution conceived –that this is not an indefinite Government, deriving its power from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers, but a limited Government tied down to the specified powers which explain and define the general terms.”[8]

In Madison’s estimation, the phrase simply reiterated that the specified powers were tied to “general terms.” In corroboration of Madison’s view was the noteworthy ratification of the Tenth Amendment in 1791, which made clear that powers not delegated are retained by the states or the people.

It is always helpful to revisit the primary sources and happenings of the state ratification conventions to explain what the Constitution did, rather than what modern voices claim. If conflicting, the first is always a more desirable and stronger explanation of truth. When forced to choose between views of what modern influences say about the Constitution, and what the founders and framers said about it, we do ourselves great justice as patriots to choose the latter every single time.

SOURCE

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Eichmann trusted in the State too

The scientific study of authoritarian sociopathy really began with the Milgram Experiment, which found that 65% of otherwise psychologically healthy people would administer a lethal 450-volt shock to a complete stranger based upon nothing but the verbal prodding of an authority figure in a lab coat. What’s seldom pointed out is that Stanley Milgram designed his experiment in response to the chilling testimony of one Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi officer convicted in 1961. Adolf Eichmann oversaw the logistics of kidnapping and forcefully relocating people deemed enemies of the State to prison camps, and death camps in Nazi Germany. When people joke that the trains ran on time, they can thank Adolf Eichmann.

Commentators on his trial said that he appeared “ordinary and sane” and that he displayed “neither guilt nor hate.” Hannah Arendt’s book on the trial was titled “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.”During questioning he showed no remorse for his role in the murder of his passengers, and in his own defense he flatly repeated an all too familiar phrase:

“I was just following orders.”

In Eichman’s view he was acting upon the decisions of the State, which absolved him of all guilt. He coldly confessed to all his actions, but never acknowledged any personal responsibility.

What’s interesting about Adolf Eichman, when compared to those convicted in the Nuremberg Trials 16 years prior, is that this lesser known Adolf never killed anyone. Now, it’s a matter of historical debate whether or not Adolf Hitler ever directly killed anyone, other than himself. Historians dispute whether he killed his wife, Eva Braun, or she killed herself. In all likelihood Hitler took lives as a corporal in World War I, but it’s of little concern, because Hitler most certainly ordered the deaths of millions of people. Adolf Eichman never did that either. In his trial he was found not guilty of personally killing anyone, but he was still found guilty of crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

When the judges explained their reasoning during sentencing they repeated a quote in the transcript when he said:

“I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.”

See, Eichmann’s crime was not simply obeying unethical orders which lead the death of his passengers. His crime was willfully and enthusiastically embracing the legitimacy of those orders. He believed in the rectitude of his actions, which is a different moral infraction that being forced to drive a train against his will.

Adolf Eichmann was an authoritarian sociopath, and I would argue that the Adolf Eichmanns of the world are far more dangerous than the Adolf Hitlers of the world. When atrocities are committed by militarized societies the perpetrators are usually a minority of the population, and the victims are usually also a minority of the population. It is the witnesses who are the majority, and thereby the most capable of meaningful intervention. This was perhaps best expressed by Irish philosopher Edmund Burke who said:

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Although that begs the question, are those who do nothing really good? Without the Eichmanns of the world, the Hitlers have no capacity. When the evils of German National Socialism came to light, and the world was screaming “never forget,” and “never again,” only to promptly forget, and recycle those slogans a generation later, Stanley Milgram was asking the question, “How many Adolf Eichmanns are out there anyway?” In his final analysis, published in Psychology Today in 1975, Milgram wrote:

“I would say, on the basis of having a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.”

Statism is a mental disorder. That is not a euphemism, but a fact. There is a prevailing view in many societies that this thing, called the State, wields absolute supreme authority. In its wrath the State can smite their enemies, and enforce their prejudices. In its mercy it can heal the sick, and feed the poor. In its power it can turn paper into gold, and if they supplicate enough it can even change the weather. These people believe that society is the product of centralized violence, and not the aggregate of their own decentralized decisions. Those who deeply internalize “obedience to authority” as a core principle become capable of the worst forms of murder, and tolerant of the worst forms of abuse. They even chastise those who resist through horizontal discipline. But most importantly, they become capable of passively witnessing evil, and even facilitating it, believing, as Eichmann did, that their god absolves them of personal responsibility.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The multiple retreats of an amazingly bad law

The Donks had two years and 2,000 pages to get Obamacare right.  You would think that would mean a well-thought out piece of legislation.  But it is so poorly thought out that more and more of it cannot be enforced.  Was it ever intended to be about healthcare or was it just a vehicle for getting a Leftist wish-list onto the statute books?  It is certainly testimony to how little Leftists understand about the world around them. Michelle Malkin lists below many of the failed bits

At the end of 2013, Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had some nasty words for yours truly. Irked that I used my Twitter feed to criticize her Obamacare propaganda efforts, Wasserman Schultz snarked back at me:

"Thanks for spreading the word! You'll be eating them next year. #GetCovered."

Classy as always. And completely wrong-headed as usual. Less than three months into 2014, how's dutiful Debbie and her Dear Leader's pet government takeover program doing? The most recent retreat measures -- call it the Obamacare Endangered 2014 Midterm Democrats' Rescue Plan -- include:

--Allowing insurers for two extra years to continue selling plans that otherwise would have been banned by Obamacare. Last fall, Americans across the country and from all parts of the political spectrum raised an uproar in the wake of millions of Obamacare-induced cancellation notices on their individual market health plans. President Obama trotted out a "keep your plan" Band-Aid effective through this year. Now, the "transitional period" will extend through October 2016 and cover policyholders until the following September, after Obama is safely out of office.

--Extending the open enrollment period for 2015 from November 2014 to February 2015, a month longer than originally scheduled. (It will no doubt be extended again as the midterm elections get closer.)

--Relaxing eligibility requirements for insurers to qualify for financial help under a three-year program intended to cushion insurers' costs of complying with Obamacare mandates.

--Exempting labor unions, universities and other self-insured employers from paying a fee that creates the above-noted fund.

In addition, the White House last month allowed medium-sized employers an extra year to comply with the Obamacare mandate to offer insurance to all full-time workers and reduced the percentage of workers that large companies are required to cover. These latest regulatory walk-backs by administrative fiat all come on the heels of dozens of administrative delays and rollbacks.

While Democrats complain about Republican Obamacare repeal efforts, we may be nearing a special inflection point at which the White House will have reneged on more Obamacare regulations than it's actually enforcing!

Remember: In November 2010, the White House began issuing thousands of waivers to unions, cronies, businesses and organizations that offered affordable health insurance or prescription drug coverage with limited benefits outlawed by Obamacare. The federalized health care architects had sought to eliminate those low-cost plans under the guise of controlling insurer spending on executive salaries and marketing. Despite the waivers, the mandate has led to untold disruptions in the marketplace and has prompted businesses to cancel the beneficial plans altogether and/or slash wages and work hours.

In April 2011, Obama signed a bipartisan-backed law repealing his own onerous $22 billion Obamacare 1099 tax-compliance mandate that would have destroyed small businesses inundated with pointless paperwork.

Last March, with the support of several key Democrats, the Senate voted to repeal the Obamacare medical device tax. But the vote has not been enforced. Device makers have cut back on research and development. And according to the medical device manufacturers industry group AdvaMed, the punitive tax has forced companies to lay off or avoid hiring at least 33,000 workers over the past year.

In December and January, when Wasserman Schultz was busy acting like a 2-year-old in response to Obamacare critics, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was busy:

--Delaying premium payment deadlines.

--Delaying high-risk insurance pool cancellations.

--Delaying equal coverage mandates that force companies to drop health benefits rewards for top executives.

--Delaying onerous "meaningful use" mandates on health providers grappling with Obamacare's disastrous top-down electronic medical records rules.

While Wasserman Schultz defiantly claims all Democrats will proudly run on health care in 2014 and 2016, endangered Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina was caught on camera just last week literally running away from a journalist who dared to ask her about the 24 times she falsely promised that if you liked your plan, you could keep it under Obama.

It's not just Hagan; every vulnerable Senate Democrat who rammed Obamacare down America's throat is now running for the hills. When the White House now talks about the "Get Covered" campaign, it's not about ordinary Americans getting health care. It's about covering the backsides of the Obama water-carriers who may very well lose their jobs. They're not just eating their words. They're choking on Obamacare's massive, inevitable, job-killing, life-threatening failures.

I'd like to tell bratty Wasserman Schultz that Obamacare critics will have the last laugh. But we're too busy weeping at the senseless government-induced wreckage around us.

SOURCE

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Crimea River

Ann Coulter knows her history:

It's pointless to pay attention to foreign policy when a Democrat is president, unless you enjoy having your stomach in a knot. As long as a Democrat sits in the White House, America will be repeatedly humiliated, the world will become a much more dangerous place – and there's absolutely nothing anybody can do about it. (Though this information might come in handy when voting for president, America!)

The following stroll down memory lane is but the briefest of summaries. For a full accounting of Democratic national security disasters, please read my book, “Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.”

– JFK: John F. Kennedy was in the White House for less than three years and, if you think he screwed a lot of hookers, just look what he did to our foreign policy.

Six months after becoming president, JFK had his calamitous meeting with Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna – a meeting The New York Times described as “one of the more self-destructive American actions of the Cold War, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.” (The Times admitted that a half-century later. At the time, the Newspaper of Record lied about the meeting.)

For two days, Khrushchev batted Kennedy around, leaving the president's own advisers white-faced and shaken. Kennedy's Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Nitze called the meeting “just a disaster.”

Khrushchev was delighted to discover that the U.S. president was so “weak.” A Russian aide said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.”

Seeing he was dealing with a naif, Khrushchev promptly sent missiles to Cuba. The Kennedy Myth Machine has somehow turned JFK's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis into a brilliant foreign policy coup. The truth is: (1) Russia would never have dared move missiles to Cuba had Khrushchev not realized that JFK was a nincompoop; and (2) it wasn't a victory.

In exchange for Russia's laughably empty threats about Cuba, JFK removed our missiles from Turkey – a major retreat. As Khrushchev put it in his memoirs: “It would have been ridiculous for us to go to war over Cuba – for a country 12,000 miles away. For us, war was unthinkable. We ended up getting exactly what we'd wanted all along, security for Fidel Castro's regime and American missiles removed from Turkey.”

– LBJ: Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, famously escalated the war in Vietnam simply to prove that the Democrats could be trusted with national security.

As historian David Halberstam describes it, LBJ “would talk to his closest political aides about the McCarthy days, of how Truman lost China and then the Congress and the White House and how, by God, Johnson was not going to be the president who lost Vietnam and then the Congress and the White House.”

LBJ's incompetent handling of that war allowed liberals to spend the next half-century denouncing every use of American military force as “another Vietnam.”

– CARTER:  Jimmy Carter warned Americans about their “inordinate fear of communism” and claimed to have been attacked by a giant swimming rabbit.

His most inspired strategic move was to abandon the Shah of Iran, a loyal U.S. ally, which gave rise to the global Islamofascist movement we're still dealing with today. By allowing the Shah to be overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini in February 1979, Carter handed Islamic crazies their first state.

Before the end of the year, the Islamic lunatics had taken 52 Americans hostage in Tehran, where they remained for 444 days.

The hostages were released only minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration for reasons succinctly captured in a Jeff MacNelly cartoon. It shows Khomeini reading a telegram aloud: “It's from Ronald Reagan. It must be about one of the Americans in the Den of Spies, but I don't recognize the name. It says 'Remember Hiroshima.'”

– CLINTON:  Bill Clinton's masterful handling of foreign policy was such a catastrophe that he had to deploy his national security adviser, Sandy Berger, to steal classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 to avoid their discovery by the 9/11 commission.

Twice, when Clinton was president, Sudan had offered to turn over bin Laden to the U.S. But, unfortunately, these offers came in early 1996 when Clinton was busy ejaculating on White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton rebuffed Sudan's offers.

According to Michael Scheuer, who ran the bin Laden unit at the CIA for many years, Clinton was given eight to 10 chances to kill or capture bin Laden but refused to act, despite bin Laden's having murdered hundreds of Americans in terrorist attacks around the world. Would that one of those opportunities had arisen on the day of Clinton's scheduled impeachment! Instead of pointlessly bombing Iraq, he might have finally taken out bin Laden.

– OBAMA:  When Obama took office, al Qaida had been routed in Iraq – from Fallujah, Sadr City and Basra. Muqtada al-Sadr – the Dr. Phil of Islamofascist radicalism – had waddled off in retreat to Iran. The Iraqis had a democracy, a miracle on the order of flush toilets in Afghanistan.

By Bush's last year in office, monthly casualties in Iraq were coming in slightly below a weekend with Justin Bieber. In 2008, there were more than three times as many homicides in Chicago as U.S. troop deaths in the Iraq War. (Chicago: 509; Iraq: 155).

On May 30, The Washington Post reported: “CIA Director Michael V. Hayden now portrays (al-Qaida) as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and on the defensive throughout much of the rest of the world …” Even hysterics at The New York Times admitted that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups had nearly disappeared from Southeast Asia by 2008.

A few short years into Obama's presidency – and al-Qaida is back! For purely political reasons, as soon as he became president, Obama removed every last troop from Iraq, despite there being Americans troops deployed in dozens of countries around the world.

In 2004, nearly 100 soldiers, mostly Marines, died in the battle to take Fallujah from al-Qaida. Today, al-Qaida's black flag flies above Fallujah.

Bush won the war, and Obama gave it back.

Obama couldn't be bothered with preserving America's victory in Iraq. He was busy helping to topple a strong American ally in Egypt and a slavish American minion in Libya – in order to install the Muslim Brotherhood in those countries instead. (That didn't work out so well for U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans murdered in Benghazi.)

So now, another Russian leader is playing cat-and-mouse with an American president – and guess who's the mouse? Putin has taunted Obama in Iran, in Syria and with Edward Snowden. By now, Obama has become such an object for Putin's amusement that the fastest way to get the Russians out of Crimea would be for Obama to call on Putin to invade Ukraine.

SOURCE

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Backdown?  IRS to give up, release all Lerner e-mails, documents

Except for what they have deleted, of course

    The powerful House Ways and Means Committee will get everything from disgraced former IRS official Lois Lerner’s email account since a few weeks before Barack Obama became president.

    And Republican committee members are hoping they’ll find a smoking gun tying the Obama administration to the years-long scheme to play political favorites with nonprofit groups’ tax-exemption applications.

    After eight months of back-and-forth stonewalling, the IRS has agreed to turn over the complete contents of Lerner’s email account, along with other documents that two congressional committees have been demanding.

They’ve had eight months to sit on all of this data and come up with a battle plan, circle the wagons and get ready for this. In the bad old days, one assumes they would just have a vodka soaked party around the burn barrel and any damning documents could literally go up in smoke. But is it really that much harder in the digital era?

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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New Colors

As you will see,  I have changed the colors of various fields on this blog
The idea is to make the colors easier on the eyes
Feedback via the Comments facility is very welcome
Most of my other blogs still have the old colors so far

JR

Some Recovery: Two Million Fewer Americans Are Employed Than Were a Year Ago

This is supposed to be the fifth year of an economic “recovery,” but the jobs numbers continue to badly underperform. In February, U.S. employers added 175,000 workers to their payrolls, but that’s still below the 200,000 to 250,000 a month we need to bring down the real unemployment rate and to keep pace with young people entering the workforce.

But the employment anemia is still plaguing the U.S. economy. The labor force participation rate (63 percent) remains stuck at or near its lowest point since the late 1970s when the Bee Gees were the hottest music group in America. Amazingly, there are more than 2 million FEWER Americans in the labor force today than one year ago. Usually recoveries bring more Americans into the workforce.
Another troubling sign: weekly hours worked dipped by 0.2 hours in February. How much the record snow and cold impacted these numbers is yet undetermined.

The number of long term unemployed (six months or more) also rose by 203,000. Americans who lose their jobs are having a very hard time finding new ones.

Since this recovery began, job growth has maintained an underwhelming pace of half the employment growth of the average recovery. If the number of jobs had just kept pace with the growth of food stamps recipients, we would have at least 2 million more Americans working today. If the economy were where Obama promised it would be when he signed his stimulus bill, we would have at least 3 million more jobs and an unemployment rate of 5 percent.

It’s time for the White House to get serious about an aggressive jobs agenda. Right now it isn’t. Its two big ideas, Obamacare and the minimum wage hike, would erase nearly 3 million more jobs.

A pro-jobs agenda would mean suspending Obamacare, cutting tax rates on businesses, ending regulations that choke off jobs – especially in the energy industry – and bringing down government spending and debt to free up private sector resources. For the near 20 million Americans unemployed, underemployed, or out of the labor force, this is no recovery at all.

SOURCE

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Democrats Scuttle Radical Obama Nomination

So much for killing the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) attempt to blow up the chamber's tradition and stack the deck for Barack Obama's leftist nominees was all for naught yesterday when Debo Adegbile's nomination to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice went down in flames. Eight Democrats joined 44 Republicans in voting against cloture to bring Adegbile's vote to the floor. Reid voted no as a procedural move to reserve the right to revisit the matter at a later date, and John Cornyn (R-TX) didn't vote, making the final tally 47-52. Joe Biden hung around to break any potential tie, but it wasn't that close.

Obama declared that “the Senate's failure” to confirm Adegbile “is a travesty. Based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant. Mr. Adegbile's qualifications are impeccable.”

Let's look at those qualifications. Adegbile was involved in the NAACP's legal defense of infamous cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal, a member of the Black Panther Party, had already been rightfully convicted and sentenced to death (later commuted to life in prison) for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner when Adegbile became involved. But he didn't just provide legal representation, he became an advocate. Adegbile, like so many leftists nationwide and abroad, made Abu-Jamal a cause célèbre based on the absurd claim that he was the victim of a racist justice system. In the end, though, he was nothing more than a cold-blooded killer.

(For background on the case, see Arnold Ahlert's excellent recap in Right Opinion.)

Adegbile's political involvement in the Abu-Jamal case was no secret to Obama when he was nominated for the Justice post, but it was also seemingly of no consequence. In fact, Adegbile would have been a perfect fit for the administration's scheme to politicize the Justice Department, while remaking voting laws through selective enforcement to tip the scales in Democrats' favor for years to come. Obama, no doubt assured by Reid, also thought he had this one in the bag. But most of the Democrats who voted against cloture are facing tough re-election prospects this year and didn't want to be seen supporting such a nominee. It's called self-preservation. Perhaps we're jaded, but it's hard to believe that they really thought the president went too far.

Reid and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) immediately took to blaming Republicans, even though it was actually their fellow Democrats who sunk the nomination. Durbin even went so far as to claim that Adegbile's involvement in the Abu-Jamal case “demonstrates his appreciation for the Rule of Law.” This signifies one of the biggest problems Democrats have – they constantly confuse politics with law, trying to trade one for the other whenever it's convenient for their agenda.

SOURCE

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Lois Lerner Must be Held in Contempt and Jailed

Lois Lerner, the Obama bureaucrat at the heart of the IRS targeting program, has once again refused to testify on her involvement in the scandal! Even though all the evidence reveals a deliberate attempt to silence the Conservative movement leading up to the 2012 election, and e-mails recovered show that Ms. Lerner played an integral role in the scandal, she still refuses to say a word.

The House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa, has found that all roads lead to Ms. Lerner. E-mails obtained by the committee show that Lois Lerner was absolutely fixated on the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling. For a bit of context, in this ruling, the high court ruled that it is unconstitutional to place monetary caps on how much an organization or corporation can spend on political or issue advocacy.

Citizens United, a conservative lobbying group, wanted originally to air a Hillary Clinton documentary. However, since it would have aired within 30 days of the 2008 Democrat primaries, the FEC barred the organization from this type of “electioneering.” The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the ruling, arguing that since free speech was protected under the First Amendment, and it costs money (in many cases) to engage in speech, these political expenditures were protected under the Constitution.

Liberals HATE this Supreme Court ruling. They absolutely despise it. No, not because they oppose the idea of tax exempt organizations contributing to the political process. If they did, that would mean the end to unions supporting candidates, since labor unions are also tax exempt groups. The Democrats despise the Citizens United ruling because it opens the playing field for conservative organizations to participate in politics as well!

The evidence is overwhelming

In 2010, Lois Lerner told a Duke University group that the “Supreme Court dealt a huge blow, overturning a 100-year-old precedent that basically corporations couldn’t give directly to political campaigns. Everyone is up in arms because they don’t like it. The FEC can’t do anything about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem.”

When asked who wanted the IRS to fix the problem, Ms. Lerner refused to comment.

In February 2011, Lois Lerner sent an email saying that the Tea Party matter was “very dangerous” and “could be the vehicle to go to court on the issue of whether Citizens United overturning the ban on corporate spending applies to tax exempt rules.”

When asked what she meant when she said the Tea Party cases were “very dangerous” she pleaded the Fifth.

In other correspondences, Ms. Lerner told colleagues that it was important to make sure the targeting did not appear to be a “per say, political project” and she ordered that Tea Party cases undergo a multi-tier review. Rep. Issa also asked Ms. Lerner to clarify whether Barack Obama was correct to assert that there wasn’t a “smidgen of corruption” in this IRS targeting scandal.

When asked about all three of these comments, Lois Lerner responded that she was asserting her Fifth Amendment right to decline to answer these questions.

The Fifth Amendment is an absolutely crucial part of the Bill of Rights. It ensures that no American can ever be individually compelled to incriminate him or herself.

The problem is that Lois Lerner and the Democrats are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

If Barack Obama was right to assert that there wasn’t even a “smidgen of corruption” in the IRS decision to target Conservative groups, then Lois Lerner should have no reason to invoke the Fifth. If she did nothing wrong, as Obama argues, then there is nothing she could possible incriminate herself for…

But, if Lois Lerner believes that she could incriminate herself with her testimony, then Barack Hussein Obama has lied to the American people again!

The Democrats can’t have it both ways! They can’t say that Lois Lerner committed no crime while simultaneously saying that she, as a public official, has a right to avoid self-incrimination! In the end, this is just an obstructionist tactic used by the Democrats to stonewall the investigation during an election year.

Luckily, there are ways to compel witness testimony, and Congress must use every asset at its disposal to force Lois Lerner to reveal the truth!

Many are suggesting that House Republicans should offer Lois Lerner immunity. This is absolutely the wrong way to go. If Lois Lerner has committed a crime and contributed to stealing the election, she should pay for her actions.

The Obama Administration has gone into full-scale cover-up mode. Not only has the IRS refused to obey a lawful subpoena to hand over Ms. Lerner’s e-mail records, but one has to wonder whether the Administration is involved in silencing her… Obama’s Justice Department, headed by Eric Holder, refuses to really investigate the matter. While the Administration claims the investigation is almost complete, to date the DOJ has yet to interview a single victim of the IRS targeting!

The House of Representatives must hold Lois Lerner in Contempt of Congress! Coincidentally, the last person held in Contempt of Congress was Attorney General Eric Holder. Congress voted to hold him in contempt for refusing to hand over documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious. Eric Holder was never arrested, and it is doubtful whether Congress would have been able to arrest him, but Lois Lerner is a completely different story.

Congress must vote to hold Lois Lerner in contempt to compel her testimony. Congress must order the Sergeant-in-Arms to arrest Ms. Lerner and imprison her in the Capitol Jail. Yes, there is a Capitol Jail.

In the 1821 case, Anderson v. Dunn, the Supreme Court affirmed that Congress does have the power to imprison individuals held in contempt. In 1857, Congress passed a law making Contempt of Congress a criminal offense.

Lois Lerner must be thrown in jail until she agrees to testify! We are not talking about a civilian… we are talking about a former bureaucrat who held a position of power at the Internal Revenue Service and used her authority to punish the political opposition and prevent political participation during an election year!

Whether Lois Lerner likes it or not, she answers to the American people!

The American people must let their voices be heard and force Congress to hold Ms. Lerner in Contempt! We must force Congress to recognize that there can be no justice for the groups targeted by the IRS without Lois Lerner’s testimony.

If Barack Obama is right, and there truly wasn’t any corruption, then Ms. Lerner’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment is unnecessary. But if she truly does possess damning information, then Barack Hussein Obama is a liar.

SOURCE

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The Failed 'War on Poverty' at 50

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) released a 204-page report this week that thoroughly examines the federal government's long-standing welfare programs. “Fifty years ago,” he says, “President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty. Since then, Washington has created dozens of programs and spent trillions of dollars. But few people have stopped to ask, 'Are they working?'” His report, “The War on Poverty: 50 Years Later,” seeks to answer that question. It stops short of making any new policy proposals, but instead is meant, as Ryan said, to “help start the conversation” on the effectiveness of the government's welfare efforts. As one might expect, the findings don't offer much in the way of good news.

There are some 92 programs that make up the “safety net,” totaling $799 billion in spending in 2012. There is “little to no coordination” among programs, but there is plenty of costly duplication. The report goes on to note that Medicaid enrollees are actually in poorer health and use more services than people who have private health insurance plans, or even no insurance at all. Additionally, the food stamp program hasn't moved the needle in a positive direction for poor families, and Head Start is a failure at preparing low-income kids for school. What we're left with, then, is a half-century of accumulated debt and untold millions of ruined lives. But at least we know the government “cares.”

Naturally, Ryan's report came under swift attack from the Left, which always stands ready to defend its entitlement cash cows from that two-headed monster otherwise known as reason and accountability. One media outlet, the Fiscal Times, was so eager to discredit the report that it accused Ryan of mischaracterizing the work of one economist – an economist who told the reporter covering the story that he was fairly represented in the report. Dr. Jeffrey Brown wrote the reporter to clarify the record, but we're certain his comments won't be as widely reported as the Fiscal Times' flat-out falsehood.

Many leftist economists have happily worked the fields for Big Government for years, using their exalted status in academia to squelch any attempt at a debate they would surely lose on the merits. They want to confiscate the money of one group to comfort another group because they see that as a solution to society's ills. Ryan, speaking at CPAC yesterday, challenged this notion: “That's what the Left just doesn't understand. People don't just want a life of comfort; they want a life of dignity – of self-determination. … The party that speaks to that desire, that tries to make it concrete and real, that's the party that will win in November.” Here's hoping his GOP cohorts hear that message.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Budget Baloney

John Stossel

This week, President Barack Obama proposed "a budget that will create new jobs in manufacturing and energy and innovation and infrastructure, and we'll pay for every dime of it by cutting unnecessary spending, closing wasteful tax loopholes!"

What? I must have fallen asleep and woken up in 2008. That could not be something he'd claim after five years in office -- years after making similar claims and not delivering on them.

Does he think we have no memory, or that we're just ignorant? Are these just poll-tested phrases that work because most voters are too busy to pay attention?

This one smug sentence alone is amazing in its confidence and deceit. Let's break it down:

--"I will ... create new jobs ... "

Politicians always say that, but this president says it especially often. Do voters not know that government has no money of its own, so when politicians "create" jobs, they take money from the private sector, the only group that creates real jobs?

I emphasize "real" because, of course, politicians can create jobs by funding companies like Solyndra, hiring more staff or paying people to dig holes and fill them up. But those jobs don't last or create real wealth. Politicians can't create real employment by taxing people and giving the money to others.

This post-recession economic recovery is the slowest ever. Usually, after a recession, the cost of labor drops, and companies rush to hire so they can profit as the economy improves.

This time, employers looked at a thousand new regulations, unknowable new rules and taxes coming from Obamacare, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Labor Department and so on. They decided: "I better not try."

May I hire interns to see if I like them before offering them long-term jobs? No. It may not be legal to employ interns anymore.

May I build a pipeline? Maybe. But the Environmental Protection Agency must approve. And state utilities. And state environmental officials. And the State Department. And the White House. And ... who knows whom else?

We might get permission in a year, or three years, or five, or we may never be allowed to build. Maybe instead I'll invest in a country where the rules are predictable and understandable.

--The president says he will "create new jobs in manufacturing ... "

Manufacturing? Don't voters know that service jobs are just as real and good? Creating software, movies and medical innovation is just as valuable as manufacturing and often more comfortable for workers. Most parents want their kids to get jobs in offices or medical centers rather than mines or factories.

--The president also says he will "create new jobs in ... energy ... "

Don't people remember Solar One, Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, etc., and the billions lost? That the private sector is better at developing new forms of energy than politicians? That the boom in cleaner, cheaper natural gas came in spite of politicians, not because of them?

--The president says he will "create jobs in ... infrastructure ... "

Did voters already forget that the last "shovel-ready" jobs didn't materialize? That billions went to politicians' cronies?

--The president will pay for his new spending "by cutting unnecessary spending ... "

Give me a break. The president has had five years, two of which he was supported by a Democratic Congress, to cut "unnecessary spending."

Even today's proposed shrinking of the size of the military to pre-World War II levels (which probably won't happen) isn't a cut. Obama's new budget proposes increasing Pentagon funds by $28 billion.

--The president even backed off from his earlier commitment to use more realistic cost-of-living adjustments when calculating Social Security payments.

--Most annoying, the president brags that he has "reduced the deficit at the fastest rate in 60 years."

But that's only if compared to his and former President George W. Bush's blowout stimulus of 2008. Much of the deficit reduction came from spending cuts (sequestration), which the president himself opposed, forced by Republicans. And his 2015 budget proposes $56 billion more spending than he and Congress had agreed to earlier.

Our debt will soon explode because baby boomers are about to retire. On this track, we are doomed.

SOURCE

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The Inevitability of Obamacare for Illegal Aliens

By Michelle Malkin

You knew it was coming. I knew it was coming. When government expands entitlements, illegal aliens always end up with a piece of the pie. Obamacare promoters relented to GOP pressure to include an illegal alien ban on eligibility and vowed endlessly that no benefits would go to the "undocumented." But denial isn't just a river in Egypt. It's the Obama way.

In Oregon this week, officials confessed that nearly 4,000 illegal immigrants had been "accidentally" steered from the state's low-income Medicaid program and instead were enrolled in Obamacare in violation of the law. Oopsie. The Oregonian newspaper's Nick Budnick reported that the health bureaucrats "discovered the problem several weeks ago and are correcting it." Get in line. The beleaguered Cover Oregon health insurance exchange has been riddled with ongoing problems, errors and glitches since last October that have yet to be fixed.

Take note: This wasn't a one-time computer meltdown. Because Oregon's health insurance exchange website has been offline and its software architects under investigation for possible fraud, the Oregon Obamacare drones have been processing each and every application manually. That means nearly 4,000 illegal alien applications with "inaccurate" data somehow passed through government hands and somehow ended up getting routed through as new enrollees with Obamacare-approved full-service health care.

How many Obamacare services did these nearly 4,000 illegal aliens avail themselves of, and at what cost?

Does anyone believe the same incompetent boobs who enrolled them will be able to track down the nearly 4,000 illegal alien beneficiaries, "correct" the "errors" and ensure that it doesn't happen again?

What a slap in the face to the millions of law-abiding Americans who have lost their health care coverage and work hours thanks to Democratic-sponsored federal health care regulatory burdens and mandate costs.

One Oregon Obamacare manager defended the unlawful illegal alien enrollment by explaining: "We were just getting people into the services." And there's the rub. The imperative of these government social engineers is to herd as many "clients" into taxpayer-subsidized programs as possible. Just last week, Obama's Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson publicized an open letter to families with illegal alien relatives promising that no one would be deported for seeking Obamacare services.

"No one in America who is eligible should be afraid to apply for health coverage because they have a family with mixed status," Johnson assured. And in another sign of how the White House is still planning for mass illegal alien amnesty, Johnson also made clear: "Enrolling in health coverage ... will not prevent your loved ones who are undocumented from getting a green card in the future or who do not yet have a green card at risk."

As always, California Democrats are at the forefront of busting open Obamacare for the illegal alien population. Earlier this month, Democratic state Sen. Ricardo Lara introduced a bill to extend health benefits and a special online marketplace to one million illegals under an Obamacare-style program subsidized by state taxpayer dollars.

In case you forgot, President Obama had already paved the path for illegal alien Obamacare when he signed the massive expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) in 2009. As I've reported previously, the law loosened eligibility requirements for legal immigrants and their children by watering down document and evidentiary standards — making it easy for individuals to use fake Social Security cards to apply for benefits with little to no chance of getting caught. In addition, Obama's S-CHIP expansion revoked Medicaid application time limits that were part of the 1996 welfare reform law.

Open-borders activists saw those provisions as first steps toward universal health coverage for illegals. They see America as the medical welcome mat to the world. Over the past year, they've ratcheted up public protests demanding free organ transplants for illegal alien patients. In Chicago last fall, they marched on a hospital with caskets and posters demanding scarce organs. One illegal alien blasted authorities for putting "paper over our lives." In California, illegal alien transplant patients count on federal incompetence and lax enforcement to abet them, because if they notify the state that DHS "is aware of their presence and does not plan to deport them," they are eligible for full-blown Medi-Cal coverage, according to the state.

Now, Obamacare peddlers from Oregon to New York and all points in between are rushing to sign up new "customers" in advance of the March 31 open enrollment deadline. How many more thousands of illegal aliens will be roped into the system? Remember: In the lexicon of the left, "accidental" is just another word for inevitable entitlement creep.

SOURCE

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Obama's fantasy Middle East

by Jeff Jacoby

IN BARACK OBAMA'S Middle East, the explanation for the persistent lack of peace between Israel and the Palestinians is clear: It's Bibi Netanyahu's fault. Things would be so much easier if only the Israeli prime minister would bite the bullet.

"One of the things my mom always used to tell me … is if there's something you know you have to do, even if it's difficult or unpleasant, you might as well just go ahead and do it, because waiting isn't going to help," Obama said in a Bloomberg interview published just before Netanyahu's arrival in Washington this week. "This is not a situation where you wait and the problem goes away," he warned. The Israeli leader had better "seize the moment" to finalize a peace deal with the Palestinians, or prepare for a painful global backlash that the United States will be powerless to stop. Stop building settlements across the Green Line, give the Palestinians the state they demand, or "our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited."

Sound familiar? Only too. This is the fantasy Middle East, in which peace is the responsibility of the Israelis alone, and Palestinian rejectionism is merely an excuse for the Jewish state to drag its feet. It is part of a larger fantasy world — one in which revanchist Russian rulers sweetly change their policies at the push of a "reset" button, and in which a brutal Syrian regime swears off chemical weapons for fear of crossing an American "red line."

In this wishful environment, there is a robust Palestinian peace camp eager for a two-state solution: a sovereign state of Palestine coexisting in harmony beside the Jewish state of Israel. If that lovely solution hasn't materialized, it can only be due to unlovely stubbornness on the part of the Israelis and their elected leader. After all, the Palestinian leader is the peace-loving Mahmoud Abbas, who, Obama says, is so "sincere about his willingness to recognize Israel and its right to exist" and "committed to nonviolence and diplomatic efforts."

But that is true only in the make-believe Middle East. In the real Middle East, it is Netanyahu who unilaterally halted settlement construction for 10 months — an unprecedented goodwill gesture — and whose Cabinet indicated last month that it would swallow its qualms and accept John Kerry's framework for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

The real Abbas, on the other hand, spurned Israel's offer of a Palestinian state in 2008, then refused for years to take part in US-sponsored talks with Israel, confident that Washington would pressure Israel into making painful concessions in order to lure the Palestinians back to the table. Those concessions eventually included the release of dozens of convicted Palestinian murderers, who were hailed by Abbas as "heroes" at an event celebrating their release. Yet instead of negotiating in good faith at last, Abbas demands still more up-front concessions, a demand he repeated on Monday.

The delusion at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is that the lack of Palestinian sovereignty is what keeps the conflict alive, and that the tension and violence would end if only the Arabs of Palestine could have a state of their own.

That has never been true. What drives the conflict is not a hunger for Palestinian statehood, but a deep-rooted rejection of Jewish statehood. Arab leaders vehemently rejected the "two-state solution" that the United Nations recommended in 1947, and declared a "war of extermination" to prevent it from taking effect. Nearly 70 years later, the Palestinians are still unwilling to acknowledge Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people — to recognize that Jews are entitled to a sovereign state in their national homeland, just as the Irish are entitled to sovereignty in Ireland, the Italians in Italy, and the Japanese in Japan.

Yet Palestinian leaders heatedly insist that they will never agree to any such thing. "This is out of the question," Abbas said last month. Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat complains: "When you say, 'Accept Israel as a Jewish state,' you are asking me to change my narrative."

Just so. That narrative — that Jews are aliens in the Middle East, and Jewish sovereignty over any territory is intolerable — is precisely what must change if this conflict is to be resolved. Bashing Netanyahu may please the anti-Israel set, but it brings a just and lasting peace not one hour closer.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Have We Allowed the First Amendment to Become an Exercise in Futility?

By Attorney John W. Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute

Including an update of the Brandon Raub case

Living in a representative republic means that each person has the right to take a stand for what they think is right, whether that means marching outside the halls of government, wearing clothing with provocative statements, or simply holding up a sign. That’s what the First Amendment is supposed to be about.

Unfortunately, as I show in my book "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American  Police State", through a series of carefully crafted legislative steps and politically expedient court rulings, government officials have managed to disembowel this fundamental freedom, rendering it with little more meaning than the right to file a lawsuit against government officials. In fact, if the court rulings handed down in the last week of February 2014 are anything to go by, the First Amendment has, for all intents and purposes, become an exercise in futility.

On February 26, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 9-0 ruling, held that anti-nuclear activist John Denis Apel could be prosecuted for staging a protest on a public road at an Air Force base, free speech claims notwithstanding, because the public road is technically government property.

Insisting that it’s not safe to display an American flag in an American public school, on February 27, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that school officials were justified when they ordered three students at a California public high school to cover up their patriotic apparel emblazoned with American flags or be sent home on the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, allegedly out of a concern that it might offend Hispanic students.

On February 28, a federal court dismissed Marine veteran Brandon Raub’s case. Despite the fact that Raub was interrogated by Secret Service agents, handcuffed, arrested, subjected to a kangaroo court, and locked up in a mental facility for posting song lyrics and statements on Facebook critical of the government—a clear violation of his free speech rights—the court ruled that Raub’s concerns about the government were far-fetched and merited such treatment.

There you have it: three rulings in three days, from three different levels of the American judicial system, and all of them aimed at suppressing free speech. Yet what most people fail to understand is that these cases are not merely about the citizenry’s right to freely express themselves. Rather, these cases speak to the citizenry’s right to express their concerns about their government to their government, in a time, place and manner best suited to ensuring that those concerns are heard.

The First Amendment gives every American the right to “petition his government for a redress of grievances.” This amounts to so much more than filing a lawsuit against the government. It works hand in hand with free speech to ensure, as Adam Newton and Ronald K.L. Collins report for the Five Freedoms Project, “that our leaders hear, even if they don’t listen to, the electorate. Though public officials may be indifferent, contrary, or silent participants in democratic discourse, at least the First Amendment commands their audience.”[4]

The challenge we face today, however, is that government officials have succeeded in insulating themselves from their constituents, making it increasingly difficult for average Americans to make themselves seen or heard by those who most need to hear what “we the people” have to say. Indeed, while lobbyists mill in and out of the White House and the homes and offices of Congressmen, the American people are kept at a distance through free speech zones, electronic town hall meetings, and security barriers. And those who dare to breach the gap—even through silent forms of protest—are arrested for making their voices heard.

This right to speak freely, assemble, protest and petition one’s government officials for a redress of grievances is front and center right now, with the U.S. Supreme Court set to decide five free speech cases this term, the first of which, U.S. v. Apel, was just handed down. The case was based upon claims brought by John Denis Apel, an anti-war activist who holds monthly protests Vandenburg Air Force Base near Lompoc, California. While the Court did not uphold his conviction for trespassing on military property, they doubled down on the notion that the public is subject to the whims of military commanders in matters relating to use military property, even when it intersects with public property. The Court refused to rule on Apel’s First Amendment claims.[5]

The Supreme Court is also set to decide McCullen v. Coakley, which will determine whether or not a Massachusetts law which restricts protests on public sidewalks near the entrances, exits, and driveways of abortion clinics in the state is constitutional. The facts of the case indicate that the law does not abide by a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction, and places an undue burden on protestors. However, it’s unclear which way the Court will rule, especially with their refusal to clarify matters in Apel.

Free speech can certainly not be considered “free” when expressive activities across the nation are being increasingly limited, restricted to so-called free speech zones, or altogether blocked, including in front of the Supreme Court’s own plaza. If citizens cannot stand out in the open on a public road and voice their disapproval of their government, its representatives and its policies, without fearing prosecution, then the First Amendment with all its robust protections for free speech, assembly and the right to petition one’s government for a redress of grievances is little more than window-dressing on a store window—pretty to look at but serving little real purpose.

The case of Harold Hodge is a particularly telling illustration of the way in which the political elite in America have sheltered themselves from all correspondence and criticism.

On a snowy morning in January 2011, Harold Hodge quietly and peacefully stood in the plaza area near the steps leading to the United States Supreme Court Building, wearing a 3’ X 2’ sign around his neck that proclaimed: “The U.S. Gov. Allows Police To Illegally Murder And Brutalize African Americans And Hispanic People.” There weren’t many passersby, and he wasn’t blocking anyone’s way. However, after a few minutes, a police officer informed Hodge that he was violating a federal law that makes it unlawful to display any flag, banner or device designed to bring into public notice a party, organization, or movement while on the grounds of the U.S. Supreme Court and issued him three warnings to leave the plaza. Hodge refused, was handcuffed, placed under arrest, moved to a holding cell, and then was transported to U.S. Capitol Police Headquarters where he was booked and given a citation.

According to the federal law Hodge is accused of violating, “It is unlawful to parade, stand, or move in processions or assemblages in the Supreme Court Building or grounds, or to display in the Building and grounds a flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice a party, organization, or movement.”[6] The penalty for violating this law is a fine of up to $5,000 and/or up to 60 days in jail.

With the help of The Rutherford Institute, in January 2012, Hodge challenged the constitutionality of the statute barring silent expressive activity in front of the Supreme Court. A year later, in a strongly worded, District Court Judge Beryl L. Howell struck down the federal law, declaring that the “the absolute prohibition on expressive activity [on the Supreme Court plaza] in the statute is unreasonable, substantially overbroad, and irreconcilable with the First Amendment.”

Incredibly, one day later, the marshal for the Supreme Court—with the approval of Chief Justice John Roberts—issued even more strident regulations outlawing expressive activity on the grounds of the high court, including the plaza. Hodge’s case, along with a companion case challenging the new regulations on behalf of a broad coalition of protesters, is now making its way through the appeals process. Ironically, it will be the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who will eventually be asked to decide the constitutionality of their own statute, yet they have already made their views on the subject quite clear.

This desire to insulate government officials from those exercising their First Amendment rights stems from an elitist mindset which views “we the people” as different, set apart somehow, from the citizens they have been appointed to serve and represent. It is nothing new. In fact, the law under which Harold Hodge was prosecuted was enacted by Congress in 1949. In the decades since, interactions with politicians have become increasingly manufactured and distant. Press conferences, ticketed luncheons[7], televised speeches and one-sided town hall meetings held over the phone[8] now largely take the place of face-to-face interaction with constituents.[9]

Additionally, there has been an increased use of so-called “free speech zones,” designated areas for expressive activity used to corral and block protestors at political events from interacting with public officials. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have used these “free speech zones,” some located within chain-link cages[10], at various conventions to mute any and all criticism of their policies.

Clearly, the government has no interest in hearing what “we the people” have to say. Yet if Americans are not able to peacefully assemble for expressive activity outside of the halls of government or on public roads on which government officials must pass, the First Amendment has lost all meaning. If we cannot stand silently outside of the Supreme Court or the Capitol or the White House, our ability to hold the government accountable for its actions is threatened, and so are the rights and liberties that we cherish as Americans. And if we cannot proclaim our feelings about the government, no matter how controversial, on our clothing, or to passersby, or to the users of the world wide web, then the First Amendment really has become an exercise in futility.

George Orwell, always relevant to our present age, warned against this intolerance for free speech in 1945. As he noted:

"The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them… The notion that certain opinions cannot safely be allowed a hearing is growing. It is given currency by intellectuals who confuse the issue by not distinguishing between democratic opposition and open rebellion, and it is reflected in our growing indifference to tyranny and injustice abroad. And even those who declare themselves to be in favour of freedom of opinion generally drop their claim when it is their own adversaries who are being prosecuted."

SOURCE

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Private property rights?

On Saturday, March 1, 2014 I attended a RK gun show on Jonesboro Road in Atlanta I met a retired police officer who now owns a franchise with Noah's Pantry, a company that manufacturers emergency/survival food. He lives in Tennessee on 20+ acres, at the end of a long dirt road.

He told me that not long ago, around 10pm, he saw 3 cars coming up his 1/4 mile driveway. The cars stopped about 300 feet from his house. The occupants turned off their car lights. Through the dark he was able to make out 4 men silently walking toward his house. With his AR-15 in hand, he exited the rear of his home, circled around and waited on the edge of his porch. When the men stepped on the porch he turned on a bright flashlight and said, "Hands in the air". The 4 men complied. They were the sheriffs of two Tennessee counties, one deputy and a FEMA officer. All were armed.

I'll speed things up a bit. The officers came there to confiscate his food supplies. There had been some sort of emergency in a nearby county which left about 250 people without food, clean water or electricity. The guy I spoke with said both sheriffs and the deputy were very polite but that the FEMA officer was arrogant, demanding and demeaning. The retired police officer said he would help them, but that they would have to pay for any food they took.

The FEMA officer said, "I'm the government. I can take whatever I want. You'll get compensation when the government gets around to it." The FEMA officer went on to say that E.O.'s signed by Obama and other Presidents dating back to FDR gives the government authority to take whatever it wants from any citizen or business during any crisis as determined by the Federal Government. When asked about the 4th Amendment, the FEMA officer said, "the Constitution does not apply".

The Constitution does not apply??? This is exactly how things happen in a Banana Republic -- the Constitution is summarily ignored when it gets in the way. The Founders are turning over in their graves.

Well, you can imagine how well that conversation went over. The sheriffs intervened before it came to blows and promised to pay for the food the very next morning out of the state general fund. They said they would seek recompense from FEMA.

And that's how it ended. They got their food. But the Take Home Lesson here, as told to me by this retired officer, is that the Federal Government can enter your home, by force if necessary, without a warrant or Due Process and just confiscate your food, your clothing, your guns and whatever else they want for whatever reason they have determined defines a crisis.

Google "Can FEMA confiscate your food supplies" to verify that this scenario can, does and will continue to happen until The People put a stop to it.

SOURCE

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Immigration:  Increasing Admissions Before Enforcement, Again

Obama administration expands visa waiver program

DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson announced today that the administration will expand the controversial Visa Waiver Program to include Chile.

Once again, the administration has moved to ease standards for admitting foreign visitors before it has shown the public that the Visa Waiver Program is safe and does not increase illegal immigration. In the past, Congress has been reluctant to expand the program because DHS has still not implemented a biometric entry-exit system and has devoted few resources to tracking down and removing visitors who overstay. In addition, DHS has been criticized by the Government Accountability Office for inadequate oversight of the program to reduce security vulnerabilities.

Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies at the Center says, “This move will remind lawmakers and the public that President Obama’s priority is relaxing immigration controls, not enforcing them.”

This move is especially troubling in light of the administration’s deliberate suppression of immigration enforcement, which has led to declines in the number of illegal aliens removed from the interior of the country. In 2013, ICE arrests declined by 20 percent, as did interior removals, even though ICE agents encountered just as many illegal aliens.

Chile becomes the 38th visa waiver-designated country, and its citizens will now enjoy the privilege of traveling to the United States without applying for visas for short tourist or business trips. This program has been a significant driver of illegal immigration; the GAO reported in July 2013 that, of a very large sample of possible overstays, nearly half were people who entered under the Visa Waiver Program.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Ukraine



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Fundamentally Devastating America

We are letting him get away with it. No action by the federal government in our lifetime, maybe ever, caused as much instant disruption, expense, uncertainty, fear, and threat to real health—while demonstrating astonishing incompetence and lack of planning—as the advent of the "Affordable Care Act."

The law was sold on a foundation and core of direct, deliberate lie. Its architects intended to sever people from their plans and doctors; they intended to make most pay more so a few could pay less; they designed a system to herd masses toward the exchanges and Medicaid. Every serious person knows it. Now, instead of saving average families $2,500, it’s costing virtually all insured Americans much more. Many Americans are left struggling to replace their coverage.

Having sawed off the branch of the coverage of millions, it’s not clear whether the law actually positioned a net to catch their fall. Problems accessing healthcare.gov are a tired joke by now. Less reported is that many who think they signed up, might as well have played a video game, having committed their clicks, selections, identities, and personal information to a façade without a back-end, landing in a dangerously hackable pile of inconsequence.

Meanwhile, the accounts are piling up of seriously ill Americans who had good coverage and good treatment who have lost it. Many literally fear for their lives. The president doesn’t deign to comment on their plight while his bagman in the Senate implies they’re liars. Operatives scramble to silence their accounts.

No one knows where this is going; what will happen. This year many millions more will be swept from employer based plans and find themselves in the same capsizing boat. Scratch that—not quite this year. The president dispensed with three branches as he sponsored, passed and signed an amendment to the law, to kick the employer devastation past the next election for some employers if they take a vow of loyal silence against blaming Obamacare for their employment decisions.

That was the latest in a train of abuses. The president has selectively delayed, distorted, or ignored so much of the law he rammed through by sham procedures and a party line vote that it’s impossible to say whether or how the remaining pieces fit together. The only thing that’s sure is that anything that threatens the president’s party with political damage will by misrepresented, covered up, or kicked down the road.

What has happened to the American spirit of independence and vigilance of government? This administration deliberately disrupted American life like nothing since WWII. When Congress passed a pharmaceutical plan for seniors in 1988 that made many pay more, they rose in anger and mobbed a fleeing Dan Rostenkowski. Congress quickly repealed its mistake. When LBJ bungled he Vietnam War, his own party rose up and served eviction notice on one of the most transformative presidents in history.

Yet today, we sleepwalk through an earthquake, discussing pros and cons, listening to straight face defenses of the president’s initiative, watching post-modern hacks for total government argue to redefine “keep your plan” “keep your doctor” and “cancelled plan.” By the account of these zombies, the president and his backers told the truth and now it’s his critics who are lying. Anger at what he’s done to our nation is unenlightened, uncivil, and racist, they intone.

Rubbish, I say. If anything the response has been too docile, too deferential to lies and the defenders of lies. He goes about his methodical agenda transforming America by executive order, and barely reported Department programs, unleashing his enforcers on anyone whose criticism rises to the national radar, while we’re left picking up the pieces of what he’s done to jobs, growth, opportunity, and now our individual physical safety nets. We’re too scared and shell shocked to rise up and chase his limousine like the spirited seniors just 25 years ago.

America is softening and stumbling. It should be difficult for the Chief Executive and Chief Architect of this chaos to find an audience anywhere that doesn’t shout, challenge, question, and resist his overreach. But we’re either too stunned to move, too afraid of the names his guard dogs would call us, or maybe we fear a knock on the door from federal regulators.

May Providence breathe new life into the people of America. If not, Obama gets his transformation.

SOURCE

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Hearing Reviews Benefits of Self-Insured Plans

Members raise concerns with possible regulation to discourage participation in self-insured market

The Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions, chaired by Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN), today held a hearing entitled, “Providing Access to Affordable, Flexible Health Plans through Self-Insurance.” During the hearing, members discussed the positive benefits enjoyed by workers and employers participating in self-insured health plans and expressed objections to regulatory efforts that would discourage the use of this important health insurance option.

In his opening remarks, Rep. Roe said, “Employers who manage a self-insured health plan bear the financial risk of providing health benefits to workers. Employers will often work with a third-party to process claims and benefit payments. Many self-insured employers also purchase a product known as stop-loss insurance, a risk management tool that protects employers against catastrophic claims and high costs.”

“It is worth noting just how vitally important this health insurance option has become,” continued Rep. Roe. “Support for self-insurance has grown because it can be tailored to the needs of the workforce and offers transparency to ensure the plan is managed in an efficient and effective way. Just as important, self-insurance helps control health care costs, which can lead to higher wages for workers and more resources for employers to invest in job creation.”

Robert Melillo, an executive at USI Insurance Services, echoed the benefits of self-insurance. “A self-funded program allows a plan sponsor to customize, measure, evaluate, and manage each and every aspect of their benefit plan,” said Mr. Melillo. “I believe a plan sponsor’s choice to self-insure with the use of quality and customizable stop-loss insurance programs is essential if they have any chance of managing their future health care spending.”

Subcommittee members listened to the story of one employer who has been able to offer employees comprehensive, affordable health coverage through a self-insured policy. Wes Kelley is the executive director of Columbia Power & Water Systems, a municipal utility for the City of Columbia and Maury Country in Tennessee.

Speaking from personal experience, Mr. Kelley testified, “Over the past 22 years, our self-funded arrangement has allowed the utility to maintain above average benefits for our employees, dependents, and eligible retirees… These benefits are provided without the employees contributing to the cost of health insurance through their paycheck or otherwise. Furthermore, eligible early retirees and their dependents enjoy the same benefits as active employees.”

Maintaining access to a vibrant self-insured marketplace is a priority for policymakers. Michael Ferguson, president and CEO of the Self-Insurance Institute of America, warned, “The administration may make this option more difficult by restricting the availability of stop-loss insurance. Specifically, it is believed that the federal agencies may ‘interpret’ the definition of health insurance coverage to include stop-loss insurance.” These concerns were confirmed earlier by a 2013 New York Times article citing administration officials interested in discouraging the use of stop-loss insurance.

Chairman Roe urged the administration to abandon such a misguided effort, stating, “The administration must clarify its plans to potentially regulate in this area, and explain the legal basis it has to do so… The employers, workers, unions, and families who rely on these health plans deserve the truth now. Like every American, they were told if they liked their current health care plan they could keep it; they have a right to know whether they too will be on the losing end of the president’s broken promise.”

SOURCE

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Republicans can help to bridge the inequality gap

In his State of the Union address, President Obama spoke passionately about an issue that concerns all Americans and strikes most as one of our biggest challenges: what he calls “income inequality.” I have yet to meet a constituent who is comfortable with the gap between our nation’s wealthiest and our least fortunate — a gap that has expanded over the past five years.

How we meet this challenge is a critical debate, because I know my constituents believe the best way to bridge this gap is to create more and better-paying jobs. Yet, too many of our unemployed today are not prepared to fill the 4 million U.S. jobs that are currently open. In my district, Hartford City has more than 100 positions waiting to be filled. In Southern Indiana, the mayor of Jasper recently shared that his city has more than 700 open jobs. Right now, too many employers are unable to find workers with the skills they require.

The president’s primary proposal to address income inequality — increasing the minimum wage — sets a floor for future incomes, but it does nothing to promote upward mobility. Minimum wage should be seen as a starting point for people just entering the workforce and not a long-term destination. I’ve also heard from small business owners who are struggling in a still-recovering economy. If we raise operating costs, they will be forced to reduce employee hours and maybe even staffing levels. Ultimately, the president will be hurting the same employees we are all trying to help.

The U.S. House last year passed several bills that would create jobs and expand education and job training, including the SKILLS Act, the Northern Route Approval Act and the Innovation Act. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate didn’t pass a single jobs bill.

The bills Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid left sitting on his shelf would do more to reduce “income inequality” than any executive action the president could take. Keep in mind, the president promised to use his executive power to enact policies if Congress didn’t enact his agenda.

The SKILLS Act would streamline more than 35 federal workforce development programs into a single Workforce Investment Fund. Eliminating red tape will make it easier for our local WorkOne centers to provide job seekers the industry specific training they need.

I offered an amendment to this bill that would give states the opportunity to direct their federal job training dollars to programs with a proven track record of preparing applicants for, and placing them into, new jobs. For the first time, states would be able to reward successful programs that work, such as EmployIndy’s PriorITize, which partners with community leaders like Ivy Tech Community College and Goodwill’s Excel Center to provide the unemployed and underemployed computer concepts training and access to externships.

I strongly believe the SKILLS Act will give people the tools they need to earn the 4 million open jobs we have in this country. I strongly believe the SKILLS Act will give people earning minimum wage the opportunity to earn meaningful raises.

Unfortunately, House Republicans only had one meeting, other than the State of the Union, with the president where he actually showed up and talked to us.

As you said in your State of the Union Address, Mr. President, “let’s make this a year of action.” I agree, let’s get to work.

SOURCE

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UCLA Leftist Has Meltdown After Anti-Israel Resolution Is Defeated

Leftists are spoiled brats who throw tantrums if they don't get their way



Some have requested a transcript. This is the best I could find, courtesy of Moshe Ringler at Youtube:

"I never talk, I’m always like, like I’m always like, like it fucking sucks (incoherent gibberish) but I’ve never been so fucking disappointed that the (incoherent gibberish) terrorize them (incoherent gibberish) so pissed off and I always bite my tongue during these meetings but I’ve never been so fucking disappointed on anything. People are getting hurt and we could have stopped it and (incoherent gibberish) we fucking blew it and I’m sorry (incoherent gibberish) 12 hours and we all did and we all listened to this and I’m like I went, sorry for blowing up right now and I’m so disappointed about this (incoherent gibberish) but like I just wanted to know that like I like know that about it all the time (incoherent gibberish)…. And it was so terrible, and my sister was like, “I’m so sorry you have to go through that”, and she saw me and she asked me, “what’s wrong, why are you crying?” and I was like the whole world should be crying right now (incoherent gibberish)"

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Leftmedia Racism:  "CNN's Don Lemon may have let the cat out of the bag when it comes to the Leftmedia's cozy relationship with Barack Obama. We know that most in the media agree ideologically with the president, and that sharing his goals means carrying his water. But Lemon admitted that race plays a significant part, too: "As journalists, you know, you weigh whether you -- how much you should criticize the president, because he's black, what have you. But then you have to do it, because ultimately you're a journalist." Except that the criticism is rarely forthcoming, leaving Obama's race as a trump card. A former president had a phrase for this sort of thing: "The soft bigotry of low expectations."

Impossible to Cancel Plans: "A Florida man found out the hard way that he's keeping his insurance plan -- whether he likes it or not. When Andrew Robinson signed up for coverage under ObamaCare but then realized he couldn't afford it, he quickly signed up for a different plan and called Florida Blue to cancel the first one. WFTV Orlando reports, "But he quickly learned canceling Obamacare is no easy task. ... More than six weeks later after spending 50 to 60 hours on the phone his policy is still not canceled and he is still waiting for the payment Florida Blue withdrew from his account to be refunded." But not to worry; Harry Reid says the horror stories aren't true.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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