There's Some Riots Going On..And It Was Planned

There's a number of riots going on in America right now. And there's no doubt they were planned.The excuse for them is the death of one George Floyd, a black man who was arrested by police in Minneapolis and died while in their control. There's a video (isn't there always?) showing Mr. Floyd being pulled over by police who were trying to arrest him for check forgery or passing counterfeit money, depending on what version you read.

BUT...I'm a bit puzzled. In the famous video, it shows George Floyd refusing to leave his car after he was stopped. The policeman dragged him out of his car and handcuffed him. SOP so far.  Then we see him handcuffed and seated on the pavement. Again, SOP (Standard Operational Procedure). Then we don't see anything until we see Floyd on the ground near the right side passenger door of his car with the cop kneeling on his neck. Definitely NOT SOP.So how did he get moved from leaning against the wall to the sidewalk near the car? What happened in between?

Did he make a run for it and have to get chased down? Did he heavily resist getting into the cop car? It will be interesting to find out. In any event, one of the other cops should have intervened. Did they?

And old and close high school friend of mine now retired from the LAPD tells me that something must have happened, because kneeling on someone's neck like that is a last resort and hardly ever used. In any event it was a stupid move.

Since this is Minneapolis, the four police officers involved were immediately fired, and the cop who did the kneeling has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter less than 30 hours after the incident took place.* And of course, violent riots broke out, mostly  in blue run cities. As we all know, they tend to be rather lenient of such things for political reasons.Nashville had its entire City Hall set on fire and of course, there was the usual 'shopping spree.' There's nothing that  expresses grief and a passion for law and order then grabbing a big screen TV for free or looting department  and liquor stores.

While the um, protests were masterminded by Black Lives Matter, Antifa's thugs and thugettes were obviously a huge part of the show. In fact, Antifa was very much involved.

Police cars and police were attacked, and in LA police were even shot at, although they were under orders NOT to shoot back. The mob, after the usual looting and destruction actually went onto the 101 Freeway, where they blocked traffic and attacked two police cars who were trying to keep them from being run over.

In Oakland's riot, A black federal officer, Patrick Underwood, was shot and killed and another FPS officer was wounded and in critical condition. They were victims of a drive by shooting right in front of the Ronald Dellums Federal Building. A number of other police were injured and some were killed in other 'peaceful demonstrations' around the country.

The most feckless and disgusting comments came from Jacob Frey, Minneapolis mayor and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms.

Get a load of this!

Mayor Jacob Frey

@MayorFrey

We are now confronting white supremacists, members of organized crime, out of state instigators, and possibly even foreign actors to destroy and destabilize our city and our region.

White Supremacists?? Really?

I'd say there was a mixture.

As for Mayor Bottoms, her response was disgraceful. First she talked about her black sons and how 'as a mother' she worries everyday about whether they'll be killed by the nasty, racist police. Who of course have been given a license to kill black people by President Trump who should 'just shut up.' She also explained to the rioters that they were looting and burning 'black owned businesses' without any words of concern for the destruction or looting of any businesses or property but those of her fellow blacks.

Talk about racism...I have a feeling she's bucking for the slot as Biden's VP.

The police for the most part are having any of their efforts to enforce law and order in their cities stymied by orders from the politicians involved and anything they do subject to micro analysis. Which of course means very little is being done towards stopping any of this. If you have a job, a pension and possibly your personal freedom to protect, you step very carefully if at all and just try to keep safe. And with a few exceptions, that's exactly what the cops are doing.

It's alsoobvious to me that the riots are well organized.There are plenty of reports of pallets of bricks having been "conveniently" staged near stores, banks and other buildings to be handy for the looters. Given the sort of people who were on the streets and the way it was coordinated in various locations, there's no doubt this was staged.

Ah, the age old question...Cui Bono, who benefits?

Obviously, the Democratic Party and the Left for various reasons.

First they're stuck with Biden (probably) and he isn't really making too many black friends
as of yet. This is an opportunity for his handlers to write up some statements for him to make about economic inequality, reparations for slavery, how wonderful Black Lives Matter is, et cetera. And also a perfect way for the Dems to paint Trump as an authoritarian/racist/what have you, and make him call out the National Guard or even the military to end the riots.

I can just see an elderly gentleman with the initials GS on the phone saying '"The pandemic isn't working. Call out the rioters. Let me know how much money you need."

George Soros spent  spent something like   $30 millions to defeat George Bush, and Bush was a dysfunctional  RINO.  Imagine how much he is spending to incite this civil war and defeat Donald Trump! And he's probably not the only one. The DNC has lots of millionaire celebs and others willing to shell out for the cause.

You'll notice that a lot of black race pimps are also being given time just now to sound the trumpets.

Robert Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television has the answer of course. He wants $14 trillion in reparations for slavery to people who were never slaves. The black population of America is 45,532,100 - 13%. That works out to $330,000 for every black man, woman and child in America.

Of course, Mr.Johnson neglects to figure in what's already been paid in terms the War on poverty, social welfare, affirmative action which gave backs priority in financial aid and placement in universities over far more qualified applicants, The money for the funding for the traditional black colleges, the money that formed and funded the civil rights movement (both almost entirely donated by Jews), repayment to businesses who were wrecked and looted in the various riots,  and of course,the cost of the Civil War, all figured in today's money.

In any event, I suggest that we start funding any reparations by confiscating Mr. Johnson's entire net worth to begin with.After all, he was never a slave...

Cornell West was on CNN just the other day yakking to Anderson Cooper about how wonderful and  the riots are, how evil Trump is and how we need to 'change the system' with  socialism that 'spreads the wealth around democratically' because America is 'a failed social experiment.'

West is a known anti-semite and a real fan of Black Lives Matter, another anti-semitic group, so this is to be expected.  Antifa has the same agenda when it comes to Jews and Israel. In Fairfax, a Jewish neighborhood in LA, every synagogue was vandalized by these people, as well as other synagogues and Jewish community buildings in other cities.

 

Speaking of race pimps and Jew haters, Al Sharpton also had a few things to say on his home network MSNBC  I won't even dignify them by repeating them.

Dan Bongino has the right of it as usual 

This is a rebellion and an attempted coup.Exactly.

So how do we stop it?

It's actually fairly simple. You stop bad behavior when there are consequences for it. Anyone who has ever trained a dog or raised a child understands that. If there are no consequences, the bad behavior continues. In this case of course, the bad behavior has been tolerated for some time...the politicians who run these cities need the votes, y'know. And felons and the kind of people who violently engage in looting and domestic terrorism are part of the bloc who votes for them especially in blue run states and cities.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), a decorated war vet and one of my favorite politicians put it this way:

The riots and the anarchy we’ve seen across the country have nothing to do with the death of George Floyd,” Cotton said. “In Washington, D.C., they set fire to a historic church attended by every president since James Madison. They defaced the Department of Veterans Affairs and the World War II memorial, which honor our veterans. They defaced the Lincoln Memorial, a temple in which we remember the great emancipator.”

“What the president can do is say that justice will be done in accordance with law for George Floyd,” he added**. “And we will always respect the right of peaceful protest, as many of these cities saw in the daytime. But the rioting, the anarchy, and the looting ends tonight. If local law enforcement is overwhelmed, if local politicians will not do their most basic job to protect our citizens, let’s see how these anarchists respond when the 101st Airborne is on the other side of the street.”

I have to agree. The one sure cure for rioting and looting is a dose of lead. Apparently a number of Americans feel this way. When the people who are supposedly charged with enforcing the law can't or won't, then it's time to take charge of it ourselves, or have the feds do it, since they don't need to answer to some mayor or governor catering to a certain voting bloc for re-election

I have never been prouder of President Trump than I have been the last few days. He has faced the most unwarranted criticism and outright lies from the media and the internet social media sites like Twitter and Facebook of any recent president and he has done it with courage. To see him yesterday walking to the vandalized historic St. John’s Episcopal Church while the Media rats yelled at him was definitely an act of courage. His reward, of course, was to be accused by these same media rats  of firing tear gas at 'peaceful protestors' for a photo op. As we now know, that was a blatant and deliberate lie.

Joe Biden's handlers even wrote him a lying statement to repeat for the media as well;

"When peaceful protestors dispersed in order for a president, a president from the doorstep of the people’s house, the White House, using tear gas and flash grenades in order to stage a photo-op at one of the most historic churches in the country or at least in Washington, DC, we can be forgiven for believing the president is more interested in power than in principle."

As we now know, these 'protesters' were far from peaceful,  and United States Park Police acting Chief Gregory T. Monahan made the following statement:

At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.

…

As many of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls. No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park.

Happy Hands Joe has always been a liar, so no surprise.

President Trump was also rewarded with some shrew of an Episcopal Bishop screaming that the president, 'had no right to go there.' She apparently forgot that every president since James Madison has visited that church. Disgusting.

And President Trump's simple  statement in response to the hideous media jackals bellowing at him  was simply to say, "We have the greatest country in the world. We're going to keep it that way."

The media  and social media have  also intensified their excusing of the violence, looting and vandalism as 'protest.' CNN, MSNBC, the New York Ties  the Washington Post and Twitter have been particularly odious.

Here's CNN's Chris Cuomo..

"Now too many see the protests as the problem. No, the problem is what forced your fellow citizens to take to the streets: persistent, poisonous inequities and injustice. And please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful."

Umm here, Fredo...it's called the First Amendment:

↓

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Fredo is also an Antifa supporter and cheerleader, so this is no surprise.

Even his big brother, New York's Governor openly said the protesters aren't peaceful. Not that he's doing much about it. Of course, he's also responsible for freeing lots of violent felons from jail and refusing to jail plenty of other criminals, which certainly intensified the problem,no?

Ok, so where do we go from here?

This is a sign of the Left's desperation. The impeachment fraud failed, their media allies don't have the clout they used to, the Pandemic didn't work, and they're stuck with Joe Biden. So bring on the riots, hmm?

Except that's not going to work either, although it's going to continue until it's forcibly stopped. The Left still have no clue who they're dealing with.

President Trump and AG Bill Barr have already started the game. Now that Antifa is officially a terrorist organization, not only can they be fought effectively but the people who have been funding them can also be investigated, arrested, tried and jailed for material support for terrorism. That could very well include certain millionaires, Hollywood celebs, and even certain politicians. The rot goes deep. It's also quite possible that certain media outlets can be sued for inciting violence.

Trump is also in a position to declare martial law if the Dem mayors still handcuff their police and refuse to do anything constructive. As I said, lead cures riots and consequences ends bad behavior...it never fails. And finally, given how the investigations regarding the attempted coup now going on, there are very likely to be a lot of Obama's former associates and fellow conspirators headed for jail.

Our gutsy President  also has the alternative of exercising his deal making expertise. 'You want money to rebuild your city after you sat back and let it burn? I want your unconstitutional sanctuary laws repealed and your voter registration lists and cooperation with ICE. Otherwise, no deal.'

And me? I live in a state where you don't even need a permit to buy a long gun, although you do need one for  a handgun.You can buy all the ammo you need.  Its Democrat Governor tried to change that and ended up having to forget the idea when both the population and the legislature rebelled. I doubt he gets re-elected based on how I hear him generally referred to. While where I live has a small percentage of Black people,they're decent people with jobs, houses and something to lose, the police here are respected, crime in general is low and overall, it's a pretty civilized place  so there haven't been any riots here nor are there likely to be.

If this doesn't describe where you live, I'd arm up. An armed society is a polite society, and if you live in a blue run city, the police might not be there or  simply won't be able to do anything to help you..orders from upstairs, you know.

We do have a great country...and yes, we're going to keep it that way. Just wait and see

* Wow, that was quick! A lot faster then they moved to charge a black Somali policeman who shot an unarmed white woman in cold blood not too long ago.

** President Trump immediately ordered the FBI and the DOJ to thoroughly investigate this as soon as it happened.

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

Obama Secretly Rewrote Freedom Of Information Act to Exclude Him And All WH Docs

 

It has come to light the President Obama, who promised the most transparent administration history was lying to the American people - again.

On April 15, 2009, a mere four months after he was sworn into office, the president decided to secretly rewrite the Freedom Of Information Act, which is designed to inform the public and provide oversight of various government activities and behavior to keep any of what it called “White House equities” from being released without a White House review:

The rewrite came in an April 15, 2009, memo from then-White House Counsel Greg Craig instructing the executive branch to let White House officials review any documents sought by FOIA requestors that involved "White House equities."

That phrase is nowhere to be found in the FOIA, yet the Obama White House effectively amended the law to create a new exception to justify keeping public documents locked away from the public.

The equities exception is breathtaking in its breadth. As the Greg memo put it, any document request is covered, including "congressional committee requests, GAO requests, judicial subpoenas and FOIA requests."

And it doesn't matter what format the documents happen to be in because, according to Greg, the equities exception "applies to all documents and records, whether in oral, paper, or electronic form, that relate to communications to and from the White House, including preparations for such communications."

This secret rewrite basically stopped federal agencies from answering FOIA requests which might include “White House equities” within the 20 days required by law, and there is no time limit on how long a 'review' might take. It covers whatever the White House says it covers and keeps whatever it wants hidden away as long as the White House wants to.

Since the White House gets to decide for itself what “White House equities” consist of and how long the White House feels like taking to review requests which might possibly include them, what the president and his team have effectively done is to make the FOIA law meaningless. They can label nearly everything as a 'White House Equity' and stonewall and exclude the public and the media forever,or pick a time to sign off on whatever does get released when it's politically advantageous, if at all.

In one case cited by Cause of Action, the response to a request from a Los Angeles Times reporter to the Department of the Interior for "communications between the White House and high-ranking Interior officials on various politically sensitive topics" was delayed at least two years by the equities review.

"Cause of Action is still waiting for documents from 16 federal agencies, with the Department of Treasury having the longest pending request of 202 business days.

"The Department of Energy is a close second at 169 business days. The requests to the Department of Defense and Department of Health and Human Services have been pending for 138 business days," the report said.

By the way, rewriting a portion of existing law secretly like this by the Executive Branch without going through congress is not only highly unethical, it is illegal and unconstitutional. It is a clear violation of President Obama's Oath of Office and de facto grounds for impeachment all by itself.

An actual Speaker of the House who had respect for congress and cared about the Constitution  would make a major public stink, bring charges in the House and submit them to the senate for trial to force the Democrats to vote against such an outright violation of law - if they dared. Unfortunately, John Boehner isn't that kind of Speaker.

The Rewards Of 'Cooperation' With The NSA - Verizon Given Huge Federal Contract

 

Yes, selling out your customer's private information to the Feds can pay big dividends.

In a press release, Verizon announced that thecorporation had been selected for a huge new contract with the Department of the Interior:

The U.S. Department of the Interior has selected Verizon to participate in a $10 billion, 10-year contract to provide cloud and hosting services. This is potentially one of Verizon's largest federal cloud contracts to date.

Verizon is one of 10 companies that will compete to offer cloud-based storage, secure file transfer, virtual machine, and database, Web, and development and test environment hosting services. The company is also one of four selected to offer SAP application hosting services.

Each of the 10 agreements awarded under the Foundation Cloud Hosting Services contract has a potential maximum value of $1 billion.


According to a court order labeled "TOP SECRET,"  that was outed by Britain's  Guardian, federal judge Roger Vinson ordered Verizon to turn over the phone records of millions of its U.S. customers to the National Security Agency (NSA) in a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The order, issued in April by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court  compels Verizon to provide these records on an “ongoing daily basis” and hand over to the NSA an electronic copy” of “all call detail records created by Verizon for communications (i) between the United States and abroad; or (ii) wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.”

That means the phone numbers involved, the electronic identity of the phone or computer used, any calling card numbers ) used in making the calls, and the time and duration of the call. So if you're a
Verizon customer, your detailed phone records were and will continue to be handed over to the  NSA .

To my knowledge, Verizon did not appeal the order or protest in any way .

The Fourth Amendment to the Cnstitution affirms  “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The government isn't even bothering to make a pretense that any of the millions of records seized involves 'probable cause'. Or that anyone is committing any kind of crime. All they're doing is scooping up millions of digital records and storing them on the chance that  maybe, one day something suspicious might be found.

And given this president's use of the IRS, that something might very well be a declaration to run for office, an affiliation, or a bit of criticism the government doesn't like, what have you.

In fairness to Verizon, they're hardly the only ones doing this. All the telecom companies are, and as we see, the rewards for going along can be substantial.

 Nor is the FISA court, which was specifically designed to protect our liberties doing much to prevent this either. In 2012, the feds made  1,789 requests to th eFISA courts to  monitor the electronic communications of American citizens.The court approved every single one of them . 

Our Constituion? Just a piece of outdated paper to these boys.

Rand Paul To Filibuster on Drones: "I will not let Obama shred the Constitution"

After receiving Attorney General Eric Holder's letter refusing to rule out the use of drones on American citizens within U.S. borders without due process, Senator Rand Paul has decided to mount a one man, old school filibuster.

“I will speak until I can no longer speak,” Paul said. “I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court.”

Paul called Holder’s refusal to rule out drone strikes within the United States “more than frightening.”

On Wednesday, Paul elaborated on his concerns: “When I asked the president, can you kill an American on American soil, it should have been an easy answer. It’s an easy question. It should have been a resounding an unequivocal, ‘No.’ The president’s response? He hasn’t killed anyone yet. We’re supposed to be comforted by that. The president says, ‘I haven’t killed anyone yet.’ He goes on to say, ‘And I have no intention of killing Americans. But I might.’ Is that enough? Are we satisfied by that?”

Paul said on the Senate floor, “No American should ever be killed in their house without warrant and some kind of aggressive behavior by them. To be bombed in your sleep? There’s nothing American about that . . . [Obama] says trust him because he hasn’t done it yet. He says he doesn’t intend to do so, but he might. Mr. President, that’s not good enough . . . so I’ve come here to speak for as long as I can to draw attention to something that I find to really be very disturbing.”

“I will not sit quietly and let him shred the Constitution,” Paul added.”No person will be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process,” he said, quoting the Fifth Amendment.

Full on old school filibusters are extremely rare in Washington, but legal. Any Senator can hold the floor for as long as he or she likes, according to the rules, but filibusters are usually done by legislative mechanisms rather than by physically holding the floor.

The record? The Palmetto State's own Strom Thurmond holds it, filibustering as a Dixiecrat for for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, according to U.S. Senate records. Of course, he had help from his fellow Democrats, who managed to keep things going for 57 days, filibustering between March 26 and June 19, the day the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed.

A close second place is held by one of my favorite Senators of all time, New York's Alfonse D'Amato. He spoke for 23 hours and 30 minutes to stall debate on an important military bill in 1986 that contained an amendment that would have cut off funding for a jet training plane built by a company headquartered in his home state.

The amendment was removed.

It will be interesting to see how Rand Paul does. If it were me, I'd be reading whole sections of William L.Shirer's "Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" aloud, particularly the parts of about hiow Hitler was democratically elected, and the parts about the 'emergency' of the Reichstag Fire that enabled him to shred the German Constitution and take full power.

You go, Senator. Let 'em have it. And let's see if any other Republicans have the gonads to help you out on this one.

AG Holder: Drone strikes against Americans on U.S. soil are legal

 

Yesterday, I reported that Senator Rand Paul was holding up John Brennan's confirmation until he got an answer from the White House on whether drone strikes would ever be used within the United States, since U.S. laws restrict the use of our military within our borders.

Today, he got an answer from Obama's Attorney General:

“It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States,” Holder replied in a letter yesterday to Paul’s question about whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”

Holder noted that Paul’s question was “entirely hypothetical [and] unlikely to occur,” but cited the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks as the type of incidents that might provoke such a response.

“Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of his authority,” he concluded.

Emphasis mine.

In other words, Holder and the president feel that in an 'emergency' or anything they determine as such, they're free to use drones, those spiffy new heavily armored APC's Homeland Security is stocking up on, any military force they want against our own citizens without due process.

Strange days...

Kansas Passes Anti-Sharia Legislation

The Kansas State Legislature has approved a bill preventing the state courts or government agencies from basing rulings on any foreign law or legal system that would not grant the parties the same rights guaranteed by state and U.S. constitutions.

While the law is broadly written, it is obviously aimed at sharia, Islamic law.

Needless to say Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR is seething.

"It is an effort to demonize Islam," said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Washington-based council. "As Muslims are seen participating in a positive way in society, that really irritates some people."

Of course, someone could quite legitimately ask whether sharia law has any place in American jurisprudence, since it expressly denies equal rights to women, homosexuals and non-Muslims, legitimizes domestic violence and goes against the entire letter and spirit of our Constitution, and presumably that of Kansas.

In fact, there was a case in Sedgewick County that very much weighed on Kansas legislator's minds, where Hussein Hamdeh, a Wichita State University physics professor, filed for a sharia-style divorce in November 2010 from his wife, Hala.

According to their Lebanese Islamic marriage contract, all she was entitled to was a $5,000 payment, and Hamdeh's attorney told the courts that Islamic law limits spousal maintenance payments to her to three months. Her attorney told the court that following Islamic law would leave her "destitute."

The Kansas legislature was a little sharper than their neighbors in Oklahoma, who passed similar legislation in 2010 but had it blocked by a Democrat appointed judge and the appeals court because it specifically mentioned sharia, which could be considered discriminatory. The Kansas bill doesn't, and it's going to be a lot harder to attack, although I'd be surprised if CAIR, aided by the Obama Justice Department didn't try.

There are a number of other states considering this type of legislation, and Kansas will hopefully prove a model.There's some things that ought to be 'demionized' or at least beyond the pale in a free society.

If people like Mr. Hooper prefer living under sharia, the last time I checked you could still buy airplane tickets to countries that base their laws on it. And there's nothing stopping them following their principles, voting with their feet and leaving.

Obama's Gun Grab: Liberty In The Crosshairs

 

President Obama revealed his plans to subvert the Second Amendment by executive order today in a speech about gun control.

The emphasis, of course, was on executive orders he can implement unilaterally without bothering to go through Congress.Why seek the consent of the governed? Who cares?

Particularly ghoulish was the president's use of innocent children as a prop. These children reportedly were selected out of a number of kids who wrote letters to the White House on gun control, or to use the new Leftist talking point, 'gun violence'. There isn't a doubt in my mind that many of these children received an explicit order to write these letters to the president from their personal in-house teacher's union member. I'm only surprised they weren't taught a Song of Praise to sing for our Dear Leader.

Not only that,but it is sickening to hear this president  go on about 'our precious children' when he's a huge fan not only of abortion on demand but a vociferous,outspoken advocate of actual infanticide.

And speaking of children, the president's diktats are unique in that while waving the bloody shirt of Sandy Hook over his head, not one of the executive orders he intends to implement would have prevented the tragedy.For that matter, none of them will have the least effect on curbing crime committed using firearms.If measures like these actually worked, Chicago would have the lowest homicide rate in the country.


The complete list is at the first link above, but to summarize:

The president intends to unilaterally reinstate the ban that expired in 2004 on what the Left likes to refer to as 'assault weapons' ( probably best defined by them as 'any gun that looks vaguely military')and what he referred to as high capacity magazines. This is another vague term that can be defined according to whom you ask. If you're New York Governor Chris Cuomo,who just signed a ridiculous gun control measure into law, it means 7 bullets, and if you're caught defending your life and property with eight, it's a felony. You had better pray that if you are attacked, it won't be by more than one assailant at a time, as this 15-year-old and his sister were.

The president plans a thoroughly invasive violation of the Fourth Amendment, destroying any right to privacy, including mandating under ObamaCare that your private physician inquire about whether you have guns in your home. In Obama's Brave New America, the feds in the person of the Attorney General will define and decide who's characterized as mentally ill and unfit to own a firearm, and will require that names, addresses and personal information be part of a national data base. Look for anyone,particularly a veteran 'crazy' enough to vote Republican or be affiliated with the Tea Party or other conservative causes to have their right of self -defense revoked permanently...which will of course stop a lot of law abiding people from seeking treatment.

And of course, if that database is hacked, or if someone with access to the system is bribed, criminals will have perfect knowledge of who has what and can plan whose house to hit either to steal weapons and ammo or other crimes accordingly. For that matter, should the Feds later want to confiscate all privately owned firearms, their task is going to be infinitely easier.

The president wants all federally licensed gun dealers to run full background checks for private sellers as well as buyers, and the police to run full background checks on the owner of any gun confiscated for any reason. In other words, if your home is burglarized, a firearm of yours is stolen and then held by the police as evidence,this president wants the police to run a full background check on you even though you're innocent of any wrongdoing.

And of course, all this is going to have a price tag, at least $4.5 billion in new spending and almost certainly more.

I have to give this president credit of a sort for really reaching for the maximum effect on this one. Not only is he attempting to subvert the Second Amendment, but the First, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth!


This trampling of the Constitution by our president was not without its unintentional moments of levity.

Here's one excerpt from President Obama's speech today that was particularly funny:

And finally, Congress needs to help, rather than hinder, law enforcement as it does its job. We should get tougher on people who buy guns with the express purpose of turning around and selling them to criminals. And we should severely punish anybody who helps them do this.

Let's see...does anyone remember Fast and Furious, when the ATF pressured gun store owners to sell to straw buyers whom the ATF knew were going to sell them to Mexican drug cartels? And how the Obama Administration and Attorney General Eric Holder deliberately stonewalled Congress' attempt to get to the bottom of it by subpoenaing documents and hearing testimony? Is this president planning to 'severely punish' AG Holder and himself for hindering law enforcement by preventing people from testifying, deliberately misrepresenting what occurred and putting all those documents Congress subpoenaed under executive privilege to hide what happened?

Over 300 people lost their lives because those guns were illegally smuggled across the border, and the last time I checked none of the people involved in transporting them had been punished in the least, especially the ones at the top who gave the orders and then attempted a coverup.

I also found the president's vacuous statement that if we can save even one life with the measures he proposes, we should do it. Using that kind of logic, we ought to restrict people from owning their own automobiles because some people drive drunk.

The president made some of the expected pro forma remarks about how he respects the Second Amendment, and that people should trust that he's not out to disarm them. He probably isn't, just now. That will come later, after the new database he's planning is complete.

In another wonderful moment of clarity, CBS talking head Bob Schieffer equated gun owners to the Nazis and President Obama's latest trampling of our Constitution to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

This ridiculous, over the top hack is the sort of 'journalist' the Dinosaur media expects us to view as a competent, unbiased choice to fairly moderate a presidential debate.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Today, as our president likes to say, is a teachable moment. We have here in front of us a blatant attempt to hijack those G-d given rights the Founders spoke of, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They were willing to risk, in those words that have come down to us from history, their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to obtain those rights. And as they found out, some people were willing to stand with them and a surprising amount of others were not.

Do we, as a nation still value those rights? What are we willing to risk to stand up for them?

Will we see massive civil disobedience to tyranny, which is what this is, or sullen compliance?

I have a feeling we're about to find out.

Biden: Obama May Bypass Constitution, Congress To Enact New Gun Laws By Executive Order

Vice President Joe Biden suggested today that the White House was prepared to take unilateral action to create strict new gun laws.

"The president is going to act," said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. "There are executives orders, there's executive action that can be taken. We haven't decided what that is yet. But we're compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required."

Biden said that this is a moral issue and that "it's critically important that we act."

Attorney General Eric Holder will also be at the meeting , and that's irony if there ever was.

Imagine..this from the people that brought you Fast and Furious.

According to a Washington Post article cited in the link, the White House wants to reinstate the ban on assault weapons (whatever those actually are) and high-capacity magazines ( which can be manufactured in anyone's garage with a little knowledge and some basic tools).

The president also wants to institute universal background checks for gun buyers, a national gun database, increased mental-health checks and penalties for people carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors. A ban on semi-automatic weapons is also being considered.

The old traditional American rite of passage that still exists in some parts of the country, where Dad buys his teenage son that first .22 in his early teens and teaches him gun care and gun safety hands on is to be criminalized if President Obama has his way.

As a matter of fact, this entire campaign gives the president a win, regardless of what happens. If congress opposes his attempt to gut the Second Amendment, he will simply do what he wants by executive order and blame congress for forcing his hand and 'not caring about the lives of average Americans.'

Whether he's able to get this new legislation he has in mind passed or decides to simply impose it, it will have the effect of criminalizing a significant part of the electorate that opposes him anyway, and give him leeway to call for even more executive power to deal with the 'criminals'.

If you think I'm going overboard or overreacting, just wait. President Obama's primary reference point in everything he does is whether it makes political rather than common sense. I expect him to go this way, although I hope I'm wrong.

It occurs to me that all three of this president's new cabinet appointees appear to be a trifecta for his radical agenda.

As Secretary of State, John Kerry will not only oversee U.S. action on the UN's proposed small arms sales ban treaty, but the man who claims that Global Warming is the greatest crisis America faces will be negotiating American acceptance of things like an international tax on all financial transactions payable to the UN and international cap and trade agreements.

John Brennan, who has publicly called for drones to be used extensively for domestic surveillance will be head of the CIA.

And Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense will be the point man for further hollowing out our military and attempting to pressure Israel, the president other great issue.

All three men agree on appeasing and allying with the new Muslim Brotherhood regimes in the Middle East, standing by and allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and creating what President Obama called 'daylight' between America and our only reliable ally in the region, Israel.Both Hagel and Kerry were outspoken advocates of normalized relations with Syrian Dictator Basher Assad.It's obvious that President Obama agrees with them, or rather that they all agree with what are obviously this president's true views on these issues, regardless of what he's said in public.

And to top it all off, the president and his allies in Congress are mulling over unilaterally bypassing Congress on the debt ceiling.

Can you wait to see who takes over Eric Holder's job in the Justice Department?

What we're seeing now is the real Obama, free from any obligation to voters.

Let’s Give Up on the Constitution!

 

That's the title of an amazing rant in today's Pravda-on-the-Hudson, written by one Louis Michael Seidman who -wait for it- receives a handsome salary from the taxpayers to teach Constitutional law at Georgetown University in Washington DC. Here's a slice:

As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

Consider, for example, the assertion by the Senate minority leader last week that the House could not take up a plan by Senate Democrats to extend tax cuts on households making $250,000 or less because the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the lower chamber. Why should anyone care? Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy? Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?

Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.

As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?

Hey, why not? We could confiscate the guns from all those knuckle draggers in flyover country, we could have Barack Obama as president for life, we could get rid of the Tenth Amendment and take away all state's rights, there's literally no limits on government and what it can do. And that, of course, is what educated fools like Professor Seidman are absolutely clueless about. Read this:

This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.

Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country.

What would change is not the existence of these institutions, but the basis on which they claim legitimacy. The president would have to justify military action against Iran solely on the merits, without shutting down the debate with a claim of unchallengeable constitutional power as commander in chief. Congress might well retain the power of the purse, but this power would have to be defended on contemporary policy grounds, not abstruse constitutional doctrine. The Supreme Court could stop pretending that its decisions protecting same-sex intimacy or limiting affirmative action were rooted in constitutional text.

Ah, but without the Constitution, Professor, there's no guarantee that you can just keep the bits and pieces you like.The document is unique in  that it supplies a foundation and an anchor for our liberties, even the ones you disapprove of.Cut the anchor and those rights drift away with the prevailing wind.

For instance, who's to say that the next president - perhaps one Professor Seidman didn't vote for, or more likely one he did given his embrace of the statist agenda - won't interpret anything that's  left in his own ways? For instance, why not put another 5 or 10 justices on the Supreme Court, all appointed by the current president? Franklin Roosevelt tried it, and was only halted when even Democrat leaders in Congress told him it was flat out unconstitutional and they wouldn't support it. Or maybe we should just scrap the court altogether. Why not? And while we're at it, we can interpret some of those freedoms the professor claims to approve of in startlingly different ways.

I also sniff something else that's more than a little bit foul in this educated fool's agenda. He's complaining here about revenue bills originating in the House precisely because there's a GOP majority there. Was he similarly opposed to President Obama's 'stimulus' or ObamaCare, both measures that were shoved through when Democrats had a supermajority and Republicans were literally locked out of the room? Both of those measures have had an adverse fiscal effect on the nation, but do you think Professor Seidman was jumping up and down screaming then?

I bet you my dollar to your dime he wasn't.

People like our friend Professor Seidman have been lecturing to captive audiences so long without being challenged that they no longer feel the necessity of actually thinking, what with tenure and all that goes with it.If this degreed buffoon actually got what he's asking for here, he might not like it half as much as he thinks he would.

Those 'white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries'  had more common sense in their individual  little fingers than Professor Seidman does in his entire body. The Founders understood that  human nature is unchanging, and they did a damned fine job of formulating the Constitution to stand the test of time and protect us against parasites like the professor who would nibble away at out liberties until they vanished..all for the Greater Good, of course.

For Barack Obama, 'Defending Islam' Now Supersedes Our Constitution

Some pictures really are worth a thousand words.

The man above being taken in by Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies for an 'interview' in the dead of night from his Cerritos, California home is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the Egyptian Coptic Christian allegedly behind the film 'The Innocence of Muslims' that the Obama Administration is seizing on as the spontaneous cause of the riots in the Muslim World that resulted in the death of four Americans at the U.S. consulate. And never mind that even the perpetrators are denying it, and that the coordinated attacks were obviously planned in advance.

In pursuit of selling this White House narrative, something insidious has happened.

The Muslim Brotherhood governments in Tunisia and Egypt as well as Islamist voices elsewhere have been calling for legal prosecution in America of those behind making this execrable film, which consists of little more than a few amateurish YouTube segments.

In the world they live in, the police showing up on someone's doorstep in the middle of the night to take them in for questioning has an entirely different meaning and context then it does to us. To the eyes of the Muslim world, the U.S. is beginning to enforce the blasphemy laws to exempt Islam from criticism that they have been so pushing hard for in the United Nations and other international forums.

President Obama famously said both in his 2009 interview with al-Arabiya and in his speech in Cairo in front of the Muslim Brotherhood that he regarded it as one of his chief duties as president to defend Islam and "to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

This president has now gone beyond merely appeasing Islam to prosecuting its blasphemy laws for it against the infidels as a craven response to violence and murder. And that's exactly how the Muslim world will see it.

As an added bit of lagniappe, you might remember that just two months ago, Thomas Perez, the Obama Department of Justice's Assistant Attorney general refused to deny that the Obama Administration would seek to criminalize any criticism of Islam, a highly relevant question in view of some of his own remarks on the subject:



Doew anyone seriously doubt that there will be an attempt to legalize enforcement of the Islamic world's blasphemy laws here in America in President Obama's second term, should he be re-elected?

Whatever the virtues or faults of this shoddily produced film, it is definitely constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment. Over the years, the Supreme Court has only defined limits on free speech where it contains a direct call for violence against others ( the Qu'ran, by the way, fails this test) or when it constitutes an immediate and clear danger to others ( the famed 'shouting fire in a crowded theater' argument so loved by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes).

The Last Temptation of Christ was a mainstream movie that was far more blasphemous and angering to Christians than this collection of YouTube skits is for Muslims, yet no one even suggested having law enforcement arrest the film maker and take him in for an 'interview'. This is about dhimmitude, appeasement and fear. And it will only up the ante next time.

President Obama has been notable in his cavalier disregard for our Constitution, but this is something new and very dangerous.

Will the American people allow it to stand? We'll see.


Professor Glenn Reynolds has an instructive take on this, as does John Hindraker over at PowerLine

Citizen's United Ruling Upheld By The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court today reaffirmed its earlier Citizen's United ruling in a 5-4 vote reversing a Montana court ruling.

In American Tradition Partnership v. Bullock, the Montana State Supreme Court had ruled that corporations were prohibited from contributing to political campaigns, a direct challenge to the Citizen's United ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court quite properly overturned the Montana Court's decision, ruling that Citizen's United applies to the individual states as well as the nation.

It's interesting to see the left moan about this.

Earlier, I wrote about the partial overturning of SB 1070, the Arizona immigration law on the grounds that parts of it ursurped federal powers. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Ginsberg were happy to jump on that particular trolley and join the majority.

Here, we have a similar case of of a state attempting to flout U.S. law and ursurp federal jurisdiction and wouldn't you know it, they all vote to allow it!

Fortunately, they were overruled by the majority.

Aside from the Citizen's United decision being a clear stand for First Amendment Rights, striking it down would also violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Labor unions and advocacy groups like NARAL,Planned Parenthood and Code Pink are allowed to make campaign contributions based on freedom of speech. So should corporations.

Citizen's United essentially levels the playing field, which is exactly why the left hates it so much.

President Obama Demands All Bow To His New Religion

The Founders of our beloved Republic were by and large religious men who acknowledged the role of divine providence in the miracle of their achieving independence in a free land of their own.

But they were also men who had come from a place racked with war and religious bigotry because of the institution of state religions, so they wisely included as one of our primary freedoms the edict that Congress would make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

The establishment and free exercise clauses, as they're known, were not intended to 'make a wall between church and state' as Thomas Jefferson's famous letter is frequently misinterpreted, but to keep America's governing classes from making laws elevating one religion over another and making it the official state religion, as the Church of England was.

President Obama's new Health and Human Services diktat requiring Catholic institutions to purchase healthcare for their employees that includes birth control, sterilization and abortion drugs and operations is a huge and egregious violation and dilution of these First Amendment rights. It is little different from requiring Muslim establishments to buy from companies producing pork products and alcohol.

It degrades freedom of practice to freedom to worship, and they are two very different things.

And once again, we see this president bypassing Congress and flouting the Constitution using the mechanisms of the executive order, the regulatory shibboleth and the appointed cabinet officer and czar.

When President Obama first came out with this policy,he expected it would simply be implemented without any fuss, which gives you a clue as to the personality of the man we allowed into the White House.

Another clue to who this president is and how he really views America and its people is that, after seeing the outcry from people of all faiths, he expected them to accept an 'accommodation' giving them the appearance of granting them back some of the rights they already own outright by lying to them that it will be the insurance companies who will be required to provide these products and services 'for free'.

President Obama continues to think that everyone is stupid except him. Catholic institutions will still be mandated to pay insurance premiums under ObamaCare no matter what. If insurance companies are forced to provide birth control, sterilization and abortions as a part of these policies it won't be 'for free' but will simply be rolled into the overall cost of the premiums - which these Catholic institutions will be paying anyway.

What the president is doing is demanding that both insurers and insured play a game of Let's Pretend that the cost of the policies is really higher than it is - because it includes these 'free' items. President Obama simply demands that people on both ends of this legally mandated transaction simply lie about it.

I admit to getting a small amount of malicious amusement out of this, because a lot of the Catholic hierarchy and many Catholics in America largely supported ObamaCare after getting assurances from this President that of course, he wouldn't expect them to have to fund things like abortions. They should have known that a president whose position on abortion has consistently been even more radical the NARAL's would lie to them with a smile. You have to wonder what former congressman Bart Stupak, a Catholic who provided the final votes on ObamaCare thinks of his decision now. He delivered the bloc of anti-abortion Democrats in exchange for a worthless executive order from Obama promising that no federal funds from ObamaCare would go to pay for funding abortions. Just as I wrote back then, the 'Executive order' might as well have been written in disappearing ink.


President Obama's cynical and deceitful 'accommodation' has just one purpose. It is yet another lie designed to give divide Catholics and to give permission to those Catholics who wanted to vote for President Obama anyway a little cover.

Thankfully, most of America's Catholic Bishops seem to understand what an assault this is on their faith and have rejected President Obama's cynical ploy.

It's up to their co-religionists and the Church to remind Catholics who once again take this president at his word of Bart Stupak and all the other untruths used to bring us to this point. If President Obama is re-elected, he will cheerfully trash this accommodation just as he's trashed the others.

The Democrats are composed of various self interest groups, many with interests and issues that are opposed to each other. But the one group no Democrat has ever gone against and survived for very long is the abortion lobby.

The simple reason for that is because abortion on demand is a sacrament for the Left and thus not just a part of President Obama's ideology. It's a vital part of a new secular religious doctrine, a state church, and thus establishment of religion as well as a trashing of free practice not just for Catholics but for all faiths, who will be subordinate to the new Leftist pantheism just as they always have been under all statist regimes. Make no mistake.. that is exactly what President Obama is putting in place, and neutering the First Amendment is an important and necessary step in that process.

This goes far beyond the question of abortion or birth control or the Catholic Church. It sets a precedent for gutting the entire First Amendment if it's successful.

It's the horrendous tip of a hidden iceberg designed to sink our freedoms.

The Forgotten Man

A video by artist Jon McNaughton trying to tell us what's at stake..you need to see this.

To see the painting at full size, go here.

Michele Bachmann On The Founding Fathers Working To End Slavery – 100% Correct

Ex-Clintonista George Stephanopoulos did his very best to torpedo Michele Bachmann yesterday on his 'news' show. In the course of his extremely smarmy interview, he asked her about a quote of hers to the effect that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery, citing that Washington and Jefferson, among others, were slave owners.

While Bachmann countered by mentioning John Quincy Adams, who was his father's secretary, the fact is that the Founding Fathers, or at least the majority of them did indeed work tirelessly to end slavery, and while they failed in the immediate sense, they succeeded in that they laid the groundwork for slavery's demise 70 years later.

An excellent read on the matter is a brilliant book called Miracle in Philadelphia, by Catherine Drinker Bowen which recounts the actual history and debates around the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Slavery was a huge issue during that convention, and many of the Founding Fathers wanted it outlawed, but ran into an impasse after many hours of debate with the southern colonies whose agricultural productivity depended on it.

The Founders who wanted to set the stage for the abolition of slavery came up with a brilliant compromise, involving the issue of apportionment.

The southern colonies that favored slavery wanted all residents of their states, slave and free, counted equally when it came to deciding how many seats they were going to receive in Congress. Some of the northern colonies, who mostly had few slaves and thus nothing to lose didn't want slave residents counted at all.

The Founder's compromise was to count each slave as 3/5 of a man for the purposes of apportionment, and when that passed after a great deal more debate and lobbying, legislators from the slave states were permanently limited to a minority. With that one stroke, the state was set for slavery's eventual demise, and the proof of how effective it was came in 1804, when the slave states were powerless to stop Congress from outlawing the importation of slaves to the new nation.

The stage was set, even if it took 70 years and a bloody war.

So it's Rep. Michele Bachmann who's correct and knows her history - not George Stephanopuolos.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Obama Pulls the Ol' Switcheroo - He Signs The Budget Bill, But Protects The Funding For His 'Czars'

Absolutely nothing like honest dealing, is there, Mr. President?

GOP Speaker John Boehner's deal with Harry Reid just got a little pricier.

While Prez Zero signed the legislation Boehner and Harry Reid hammered out, he also issued a signing statement, a legal declaration by a president on legislation they sign into law. Obama's notified lawmakers that he won't abide by the section of the new budget law defunding the establishment of so-called "czars."

Obama's 'czars' as you know, are informal advisers in various areas who aren't subject to Senate confirmation, get six figure salaries and huge staff budgets. They've been a major sore point for the Republicans, which is why they included in their spending bill a provision barring the use of federal funds for czars as part of the deal. Between this and his prior partisan attack dog speech on the budget, Obama essentially just told Boehner and the Republicans in Congress exactly where they can go and how to get there. That's the president's idea of 'bi-partisanship'.

Obama, in this as in most things, is essentially a dishonest man. The point where he agrees to a deal is the point where you need to check and make sure you still have your wallet.

So much for Boehner's sense of the art of the deal, hmm? It would have been far better to go for broke and start out on a high note from which you could then grudgingly climb down.

Perhaps Boehner and the others who supported this smoke and mirrors budget fiasco learned something from the experience. I hope so.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

The Constitution War

Believe it or not, the foundation of our beloved Republic has become a source of discord and a talking point for the Left lately. And there's a reason for it.

It started out with überLefty and Journolista mastermind Ezra Klein dissing the Constitution because, after all, it's confusing and hard to read because it was written more than a hundred years ago.

Later he made an absolutely hilarious attempt to walk it back, thus revealing his essential dishonesty, but he was followed by a number of figures on the Left after the Republicans opened the 112th Congress by actually reading the Constitution aloud.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), for instance, launched a five minute tirade on the House floor protesting the reading.

Other Democrats like Jesse Jackson Jr. and James Clyburn got angry because the Constitution wasn't read in 'its original unamended version' - which of course would have included the language on slavery.

Clyburn even went as far as to link the reading of the Constitution with the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords on Ed Schultz's radio show.

Ironically for Clyburn and his ilk who now want to censor talk radio and freedom of speech, Congresswoman Giffords was one of the few Democrats who accepted the GOP's invitation to participate in the Constitutional reading, with her part being the 1st Amendment.

The truth is, the American Left has been using the rights provided in the Constitution as a shield for years while doing its very best to pervert it into something very different than the Founders intended.

As Rush Limbaugh put it, it must have been absolute torture for them to hear it read aloud.It's no wonder a significant number of them ducked out, although the Republicans invited them to participate.

And it's easy to see why it was so painful for so many of them. The Constitution by its very nature is unique, in that it limits the scope and power of government, entirely the opposite pole of many of today's Democrats and certainly the President.For many of them, Big Government and statism is a religion in itself and hearing it read publicly by the Republicans must have been the equivalent of a devout Catholic sitting in on a Black Mass.

John Boehner and the Republicans had good reasons of their own to start off the 112th Congress by reading the Constitution. For the past two years, we have been treated to an orgy of Big Government that has trampled on both the letter and the spirit of that sacred document. The Republicans wanted to send a message to the American people, to President Obama and to the Democrats that things had changed, and they wanted to remind themselves why the people sent them there in the first place.

Speaker John Boehner made the same point in his acceptance speech:

In the Catholic faith, we enter into a season of service by having ashes marked on our foreheads. The ashes remind us that life in all its forms is fragile – our time on this Earth, fleeting. As the ashes are delivered, we hear those humbling words: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The American people have humbled us. They have refreshed our memories as to just how temporary the privilege to serve is. They have reminded us that everything here is on loan from them. That includes this gavel, which I accept cheerfully and gratefully, knowing I am but its caretaker. After all, this is the people’s House. This is their Congress. It’s about them, not us. What they want is a government that is honest, accountable and responsive to their needs. A government that respects individual liberty, honors our heritage, and bows before the public it serves.

Let’s start with the rules package the House will consider today. If passed, it will change how this institution operates, with an emphasis on real transparency, greater accountability, and a renewed focus on the Constitution.

Our aim will be to give government back to the people. In seeking this goal, we will part with some of the rituals that have come to characterize this institution under majorities Republican and Democratic alike. We will dispense with the conventional wisdom that bigger bills are always better; that fast legislating is good legislating; that allowing additional amendments and open debate makes the legislative process “less efficient” than our forefathers intended.

These misconceptions have been the basis for the rituals of modern Washington. The American people have not been well served by them.

...

Let us now move forward humble in our demeanor, steady in our principles, and dedicated to proving worthy of the trust and confidence that has been placed in us. If we brace ourselves to do our duty, and to do what we say we are going to do, there is no telling what together we can accomplish for the good of this great and honorable nation. More than a country, America is an idea, and it is our job to pass on to our posterity the blessings bestowed to us.

You'll notice that I refer to the Constitution as a sacred document.

That attitude would particularly incense Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a secular Leftist and 'Progressive' who's the outgoing head of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties.

Nadler called the "ritualistic reading" on the floor "total nonsense" and "propaganda" intended to claim the document for Republicans. "You read the Torah, you read the Bible, you build a worship service around it," said Nadler, who argued that the Founders were not "demigods" and that the document's need for amendments to abolish slavery and other injustices showed it was "highly imperfect."

We'll get to slavery in a moment, but allow me to explain why Nadler is very, very wrong.

Our Constitution is unique because it was created by men who had as their starting point the notion that men have rights endowed upon them not by some bureaucrat or king, but by G-d. As such, they formulated it with the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule in mind. While it does not hold the answers to everything, it is a nearly perfect document for ordering how men may live with one another in society..which after all, is what religion is really all about in the end, a code of rules and conduct for men and women to live by.

To quote RamaKrishna, spirituality is useless if it isn't practical, if it doesn't affect how people live in the day to day world. The Constitution does that, and the proof is that it has kept our peaceful and free Democracy functioning for 230 odd years. And in those instances where the actions of men and government have deviated from those rules, it has provided a framework for correction, not by adding more government control but by doing exactly the opposite. Above all, the Constitution is the most successful document of its kind that enshrines political and personal liberty and provides a framework and rules for making it work.

As such, I think it's worthy of a little worship.

That this would be anathema to the Left is a given, because they have no trust in anything but government coercion.

And speaking of coercion, let's talk about slavery for a moment. Contrary to what you'll hear from the like of Jesse Jackson Jr. the Founders did not approve of slavery, they merely acknowledged it. The difference is important.

The more prescient of the Founders realized that slavery was a problem the nation would have to deal with eventually, so they provided the means for its ultimate demise. First they mandated the individual states to decide whether to allow it or to disallow it, and second, they refused to let slave states use their slave population to increase their representation in Congress, thus assuring that slave states would always be a minority.

This was the famous 'three fifths of a man' clause so beloved of people on the Left who want to illustrate their contempt for the Constitution and the Founders. In fact, that clause represented a compromise between the slave states, who wanted to increase their clout in Congress by counting all slaves as full constituents and the abolitionists, who didn't want the slaves counted at all.

Both positions were flawed; to count people as 'constituents' who had no vote and no voice and were chattel property would have been comparable to counting livestock, and would have given the slave states added clout in Congress and in the electoral college they did not merit, as well as making slavery a more permanent institution immune to reform. To not count them at all was equally flawed. It would have failed to acknowledge that the slaves were people who had the right to at least have their presence acknowledged, and would also have split the new Republic at birth, thus eliminating any possibility of eventually eliminating what Abraham Lincoln later famously called 'the Evil Institution'.

And in fact, one of the first things the new nation did, in 1804, was to outlaw the further importation of slaves to America, thus dooming the slave states to a minority status forever. It took another sixty years and a bloody war to eliminate it entirely, but it was done. And it might have happened even sooner and more peacefully if not for the Democrat's success in passing the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Democrat President James Buchanan's illegally pressuring the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the extension of slavery in the Dred Scott decision.

Our Constitution was written before the demise of slavery and before Woman's suffrage, but it provided the framework for both to happen when the nation was ready because of the principles it was based on. And the further we get away from those basic principles, the closer we get to statist tyranny and the loss of a key part of what makes America an exceptional nation.

In view of what's happened in the last few years, House Speaker John Boehner was extraordinarily wise and prescient to start off the 112th Congress by reading this marvelous document to which we owe so much, and I think history will bear him out.


please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Book Review: "Clarence Thomas, A Biography"

Writing a biography of a living person is always a challenge, especially when the person involved is noted for the extreme guarding of his privacy and decides not to cooperate.

That's exactly the challenge Andrew Payton Thomas undertook in the first full length biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, published originally on the tenth anniversary of his confirmation hearings in the US Senate.

Thomas ( no relation) traces back the history of Clarence Thomas' family to slavery days, and where Justice Thomas fits in to the story. He documented his days in Pin Point, Georgia and the foundation in basic principles Thomas received from his grandfather who raised him, a man who proudly owned his own business (where Clarence was expected to work after school and in summer) and whom had as a favorite saying, "Old Man can't is dead, and I helped bury him."

In writing about Thomas' days in a Catholic seminary, his time at law school and his days as a young lawyer in Missouri, the author gives us a remarkable portrait of not only how his experiences affected Thomas' personality but how it affected his intellectual development. You can see where Thomas' originalist views of the Founders and the Constitution came from, and there are some decent examinations of some of Thomas' opinions on key cases as well as an interesting look at how the High Court functions day to day.

The book also gives a good and balanced portrait of exactly what happened during Thomas' confirmation hearings, a look at the real Anita Hill and at the Democrat strategy to turn Clarence Thomas into another Robert Bork. Had it succeeded, America would have been denied a unique and powerful voice on the Supreme Court.

Recommended.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!