Category Archives: Revolution

It couldn’t happen here, could it?

Posted on by

I read. By that, I mean I read a lot. If you see me away from home, you may notice I have my tablet with me. I have a couple of thousand books on it. I finished a book last night, Joe Steel by Harry Turtledove. http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1406509652l/22544038.jpgI’m not going to give it a review. I rarely, if ever, review books. I’ve read a lot of Turtledove’s books and his favorite theme is Alternate History. I would suggest you read this one. It has some critical insights within it.

The alternate history in this book is simple…what if Joe Stalin’s parents had emigrated to the US well before Joe Stalin was born? Leon Trotsky, a darling of some current leftists, would have succeeded V. I. Lenin to lead communist Russia. Joe Stalin, who is called Joe Steel in the book, becomes a California congressmen running against FDR in 1932…and FDR and Eleanor mysteriously die in a fire in the New York Governor’s mansion.

I remember my father saying, he was an FDR democrat, that the country came to within a hair’s breadth of a revolution in 1932. Progressive propaganda blamed Wall Street for the nation’s woes. Some of that blame is valid; much was not.

The book uses that concept to show how the US could be changed into a dictatorship by an unprincipled strongman. I don’t know Turtledove’s politics but some of the tactics used by Joe Steel are eerily similar to some being used by Barak Obama.

How could the US be suborned into a dictatorship? The answer is in the book if you look: complacency, ignorance, and bigotry against the fundamental principles of this nation with a well-planned attack by democrats against free enterprise and capitalism. Take a look at our current politics and you’ll see the parallels in the book.

When FDR’s tactics were blocked by the Supreme Court, FDR attempted to pack the court with his cronies. In Joe Steel, Stalin has them charged with trumped up violations and shoots them for treason. The aims of FDR and Joe Steel were the same, only the tactics were different.

The book disturbed me. Not by its theme nor of its plot; it disturbed me because it could easily happen here. We don’t have someone knocking on our door in the middle of the night. They use battering rams instead.

***

If you’re a student of military history, you may have noticed something that is no longer allowed in the US military. Not all that long ago, a soldier’s weapons were stored, not in the armory, but with him in his barracks. In the 1990’s, during Clinton’s administration, that changed and those weapons were removed, taken from the troops. If the question was asked, “Why?” no real answer was given. There is one very reasonable motivation—the military leadership feared their troops.

The disarming of the military had consequences. One direct consequence was the massacre at Ft. Hood. There have been other, less well-known incidents as well.

Ted Cruz has an answer. Allow troops to carry personal weapons on base. It won’t alleviate the fears of mutiny by the leadership. It will, however, allow troops to have the means to be able to defend themselves and their families.

Ted Cruz takes on the military, says ‘Second Amendment rights are removed’ from troops on base

Base commanders fear accidents, escalation of personal disputes

By Jacqueline Klimas – The Washington Times – Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Sen. Ted Cruz is asking lawmakers to consider allowing troops to carry personal firearms on base for protection, reviving a fight that has previously been a nonstarter with Congress after military leaders said they didn’t support the change.

While many lawmakers said Tuesday they were open to having a discussion on changing the rules in a Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing, most said that they would defer issues of base security to military leaders — who have historically been against allowing concealed carry on their posts.

Mr. Cruz formally sent a letter to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and chairman of the committee, on Tuesday afternoon asking for a hearing on the subject, saying that current restrictions impede Second Amendment rights and weaken the safety and security of troops.

“The men and women in our military have been at war for over a decade; they understand the responsibilities that go along with carrying a firearm,” Mr. Cruz wrote in the letter. “Yet their Second Amendment rights are removed at the front gate.”

I suggest you read the entire column at the Washington Times website. It’s worth a read.

Facebook

The Word

Posted on by

A word was spoken yesterday, in an open forum, by someone who is not a member of the media’s right-wing, extremist, whack-jobs. The speaker was Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies. He was speaking before a congressional committee hearing about the constitutional limits imposed on the presidency and the implications of President Barack Obama’s disregard for implementing the Affordable Care Act (AKA, Obamacare – Crucis) as written. His statement was this:

“There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restrains that the constitution places on the government,” Cannon said. “Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.” — Mediate.

Revolution. Civil War. Scary words that should make everyone hearing or reading them have second thoughts on the consequences of their current, past and future actions. A second Civil War in the United States would make the Lebanese Civil War of the last century look like a walk in the park among cool breezes and playing children. No one who has seen war takes those words lightly, but they have now been spoken by a credible speaker, before a congressional committee. Once spoken, the words cannot be retracted.

The nation has been on this path for decades. It started under Reagan when the democrat congress passed laws to make differences in foreign policy a crime. An incident occurred call the Iran-Contra Affair. The prosecution of Ollie North was the result. North was convicted of accepting an illegal gratuity, obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and destruction of documents, but the ruling was overturned since he had been granted immunity.

From criminalizing differences of political policy to ignoring, failing to enforce law and selective enforcement of law, the democrat party has lead the country to this point—massive repeal of federal laws, abolishment of federal agencies used by democrats to persecute political opposition, and a restructure of the federal government to restore state sovereignty—or chaos and war.

The Republican Party has been an active partner in many of the actions of the democrats. They have ignored the wishes—the demands, of their constituents to maintain their personal positions of power in Washington. They are not guiltless, either.

Michael Cannon continued to say, before the congressional committee this final statement.

“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”

“That is a very dangerous sort of thing for the president to do, to wantonly ignore the laws,” Cannon concluded, “to try to impose obligation upon people that the legislature did not approve.” — Mediate.

Have we reached the point in this country when law become irrelevant? Many believe so.

Facebook

The Third Day before Thanksgiving

Posted on by

Now for news from the war front: Al Franken, Socialist Party Senator from Minnesota, breaks with Obama: calls for delay of implementation of Obamacare until after the 2014 elections!

Yes, there’s a bit of hyperbole in that opening headline…but not all that much; I believe the name of the democrat party in Minnesota is, Social Democrats. Al Franken did break with Obama, as did 40 congressional democrats in an attempt to save their political futures.

Amid all the hoopla and hyperbole coming out of Washington saying the ‘Pubs are disintegrating, Joseph Curl, writing in the Washington Times, has a contrary opinion.

CURL: Democrats at war — bailing on Obama

By Joseph Curl, Updated: 10:51 a.m. on Monday, November 25, 2013

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

One story the mainstream media just loves: Republicans at war. The party’s splintered to shreds, torn beyond repair, cut in two, broken asunder.

They write it week after week. The House speaker loses a vote, boom, the Republican Party is ruptured. But guess what story they never write?

This one.

The Democratic Party is ripped to tatters. The fake lovefest that broke out after Hillary Rodham Clinton wandered off into the wilderness in June 2008 is over. She’s back, and so is her troublemaking husband (who last week advised President Obama to “honor” his commitment on keeping your health insurance — and he knows about honor).

More, no one is afraid of the party’s top cop. Nearly 40 Dems bailed on him to support the “Keep Your Health Plan Act of 2013” just a day after Bubba made his pronouncement. They weren’t worried in the least about fallout or retribution. They were busy saving their own skins — which meant breaking hard from the president.

Now, here’s the thing: Republicans, contrary to media reports, were never confused about Obamacare. Not one voted for the bill Mr. Obama signed into law in 2010. That means RINOs, lefty-middle righties, conservatives, tea partyers, moderates, even mavericks — the whole big tent — stood as one in opposition to a law they knew was insanity. No dissension there.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Blue Dog Democrats, moderate lefties, Reagan D’s — the middle left — had Obamacare shoved down their throats. They ate Obamacare because they had to: The party as a whole was moving left, hard, and they had one choice — go with them, or be left behind. So, they voted en masse for Obamacare.

But everything’s changing now, fast. At stake: In the short term, the makeup of the Senate. In the long term, much more: The future of liberalism.

The second half of the article continues at the website.

On the other hand, stories are emerging that hint about the breakup of Mitch McConnell and his supporters in the GOP. In a straw poll of the GOP on one country in Kentucky, McConnell lost the poll with Matt Bevin, his Tea Party opponent, 80% to 20%.

Matt Bevin Takes over 80% of Vote in Kentucky Straw Poll

by Breitbart News 25 Nov 2013, 8:24 AM PDT

On Sunday, Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon interviewed aspiring Kentucky Republican senatorial candidate Matt Bevin on Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot channel. 

Bevin, endorsed by the Tea Party, said that his upcoming primary battle with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is “not only a microcosm for the battle of the Republican party, but the entire political process.” The battle for limited government, the belief that government has a spending problem, distaste for crony capitalism, and a strong opposition to tax increases animates his campaign to be Senator.

Bevin served four years as an officer in the U.S. Army and rose to Captain of the 5th Mechanized Infantry Division Artillery’s counterfire office. Although he hails from humble beginnings, growing up in a small town in New Hampshire living in a small farmhouse house with a big family, Bevin proved to be a savvy business man and, according to Bannon, accumulated as much as $25 million. 

Bannon thinks that the Kentucky senate race is one that will draw the attention of the entire nation for several reasons. One crucial reason is that McConnell has made a number of accusations that Bevin had committed improprieties while running a family manufacturing company which Bevin categorically denies. Also, McConnell has stirred the ire of the conservative grassroots by calling them “nothing but a bunch of bullies.” Moreover, Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks, has dumped several million in to Democrat challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes’ campaign, who as a result will be an immediate threat to whoever wins the republican primary. 

Bevin and Bannon talked about the results of a recent straw poll that took place recently in Boone County Kentucky. Last Thursday, Bevin won a resounding victory over Mitch McConnell at a Boone County GOP straw poll of 700 Republicans garnering 80% of the votes.

Clearly, Matt Bevin may be able to pull off a victory come next November and unseat McConnell but he has a long way to go. McConnell raised over $9 million while Bevin has so far accumulated only $160,000. Bannon did point out though Bevin has a huge personal fortune to draw from if he wants to.

Add another story to this about McConnell’s attack on rank and file GOPers in Washington. The latest news is McConnell allies forced a book-keeper, SCF’s bookkeeper, Lisa Lisker, out of her job. The SCF is the Senate Conservative Fund who is supporting Matt Bevin, McConnell’s opponent in the upcoming Kentucky primary.

Mitch ‘Mr. Majestic’ McConnell is Melting, Pressures Bookkeeper in Tea Party Fight

By November 25, 2013

From promising young candidates to bookkeepers … that’s right, bookkeepers, Mitch McConnell appears to want to punch everyone in the nose, along with believing they work for him and no one else – let alone the people who elect them.

mini-mitchHere’s the latest via Collateral Damage in a GOP Civil War | National Review Online. McConnell is effectively out of touch with the GOP base and now routinely being owned by Harry Reid and the Democrats. Worse, all he seems capable of now is lashing out at his own side. These are only the latest in a growing series of events calling McConnell’s judgment into serious question. I do honestly think it’s time for this guy to go. We need new blood, not old bad blood born of an outdated view of the Senate.

The nation’s youngest university president Nebraska’s Midland University, Sasse has become the latest collateral damage in a GOP civil war between McConnell and Holmes, on the one side, and Matt Hoskins and Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint, Hoskins’s political godfather.

By all accounts, Sasse — whom The Weekly Standard recently heralded as being able to bridge the divide between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party — never wanted a fight with McConnell. In 2013, however, it’s becoming clear that being Switzerland isn’t really an option.

Last week, for example, pressure from McConnell allies convinced SCF’s bookkeeper, Lisa Lisker, to part ways with the group. Lisker has previously worked for Republican candidates locked in tense primary elections without incident, sources say.

Yes, McConnell must go, the sooner, the better.

***

With Thanksgiving just three days away, here is today’s parting topic.

Is nothing sacred? Stand up for real meaning of Thanksgiving, skip the shopping on Turkey Day

I was almost expecting it when the KMarts and Walmarts of the world announced their stores would be open this year on Thanksgiving night. Sigh. It seemed to reflect that good ol’ American over-the-top holiday consumerism which seems to creep up on us closer and closer to Labor Day every year.

But again, that’s the big boxes, the new stores on the block; the ones who HAVE to pull a stunt.

Now comes word that the department store synonymous with Thanksgiving and Christmas, indeed the legendary setting of the classic movie, “Miracle On 34th Street” is stepping into the fray…Macy’s is opening on Thanksgiving. Macy’s? Seriously? Is NOTHING sacred? Apologies for the cliché question, but I have an answer: No.

In America, nothing is sacred anymore.

It’s the “Broken Windows” theory of crime in the context of our culture, our values: if petty vandalism goes unchecked, not only does more vandalism occur, but an environment is created leading to more violent crimes which occur more frequently. Eventually society ends up an epidemic of crime and the commensurate breakdown in the quality of life.

In the case of stores opening on Thanksgiving, remember when there was ONE place in town open for a few hours on Thanksgiving morning where you could grab an emergency carton of milk?

Remember, how even that little store would be closed by 11am?

Remember how the ride to grandma’s felt like a post-apocalyptic journey through a ghost town?

Remember when someone told you that the big drugstore chain down the road was open til 3 on Thanksgiving?

Remember when the supermarket stuck with its normal hours?

Broken windows.

Now we’re supposed to cheer when Macy’s opens on our formally sacred day of gratitude?

And what of the EMPLOYEES? What of our dear fellow Americans who are being plucked from the cozy confines of their homes on a holiday? The concept of working on Thanksgiving used to be nonsensical. EVERYBODY is supposed to be off on Thanksgiving!

Mr. Macy meet Mr. Scrooge (different holiday same story).

This very well could be the beginning of the end of a beautiful day of reflection; a gathering of loved ones in a common moment of gratitude.

If we are not vigilant, the gathering, the meal, the fellowship could very well give way to a quick toast around the table and turkey sandwiches.

Now, here’s what I want you to do. Take a stand for tradition this Thanksgiving.

Don’t go shopping. Stay where you are when the meal is over and do what you’re SUPPOSED to do: Linger in the kitchen, pick at the pies, do the dishes, listen to the older ladies complain about their husbands, settle in front of the television with your cousins and reflect about holidays gone by.

Perhaps you’ll be blessed to enjoy the greatest Thanksgiving tradition of all…falling asleep on the couch to the dulcet sound of family and friends laughing in the background.

I know that sounds cheesey, but it’s not nearly as cheesey as the notion of leaving your family to go shopping on Thanksgiving.

Facebook

No Country for Old Moderates

Posted on by

Today’s post title is taken from an article that appeared in The Daily Beast. The writer is, supposedly, conservative. However, once you wade through all of his ‘inside the beltway’ bias, you will see he’s been feeding from the establishment trough. On the other hand, he does makes some points and not, I believe, in the fashion he intended.

No Country for Old Moderates

by

It’s not ‘moderates’ vs. ‘conservatives. The two opposing Republican sides, if they really are opposing, are ‘radical’ and ‘conservative.’ And only one side is fighting. The other is rolling over, says Michael Tomasky.

The more I think about this Republican “civil war,” the less it looks like war to me. It often gives the appearance of being war because these Tea Party people march into the arena with a lot of fire, brimstone, and kindred pyrotechnics that suggest conflict. But what, really, in hard policy terms, are these two sides arguing about? Practically nothing. It’s a disagreement chiefly over tactics and intensity. That’s a crucial point, and so much of the media don’t understand it. But I’m here to tell you, whenever you read an article that makes a lot of hay about this “war” and then goes on to describe the Republican factions as “moderate” and “conservative,” turn the page or click away. You are either in the hands of an idiot or someone intentionally misleading you.

This is Tomasky’s first error. The differences between the Conservatives and the establishment in the GOP is not just ‘tactics.’ It is about goals. The Conservatives want change, reforms, and a return to government as envisioned by the Founders. The establishment is interested only in maintaining their personal positions and power. Tomasky has swallowed the establishment’s pablum or is an active participant as an establishment propaganda organ.

What’s going on presents many of the outward signs of political warfare. Insurgent radical extremists are challenging already very conservative incumbents whose thought and deed crimes are that they are conservative only 80- or 90-something percent of the time instead of 100 (or 110, preferably). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), American Conservative Union 2012 rating of 92, being challenged? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell? He got 100 percent in 2012!  Hey, I was joking about that 110!

So sure, running primaries against people like this can be called warlike acts. But a real war has two sides who believe different things and are willing to fight to the death for them. In this war, that description applies only to one side.

This…skirmish, let’s call it, is between radicals and conservatives. (It certainly doesn’t involve moderates; there are roughly four moderate Republicans in Congress, depending on how you count, out of 278.) The conservatives, the more traditional conservatives such as John McCain, Orrin Hatch, and many others in the Senate, and House Speaker John Boehner, could be a force if they wanted to. But by and large, they’ve refused to be. If the GOP had two warring factions, then you might expect that on all major high-profile legislative votes, the schism would evince itself in the roll calls. But when you look back over the list of high-profile measures that have come before them while Barack Obama has been president, the conservatives and the radicals only really split on two occasions.

Now you see where Tomasky comes from. He believes McCain, McConnell, Hatch, Boehner are all conservatives. I can not imagine how more wrong he could be unless his personal views align with Marxists like Sheila Jackson Lee or he’s in the pay of Karl Rove.

After the fiasco and sellout to Obama earlier this month, these politicians, the ones Tomasky calls ‘conservative,’ and those like them, have been unmasked. No, they are not conservatives. They are not even moderates. They are democrats in disguise.

Tomasky, according to his establishment talking points, sees little difference between these “conservatives” and the “extremists and radicals” like the Tea Party, Cruz, Lee and a handful of others.

The radicals may be fighting a war. But the conservatives are executing a classic rearguard action. At best. And that’s not much of a civil war.

If, above,  you substitute “conservatives” for radicals and “the establishment” for “conservatives” in the second sentence, the quote is correct.

One was the fiscal cliff deal as 2013 started. In the House, 85 Republicans backed that deal and 151 voted against it.  In the Senate, the vote was 89-8; 40 Republicans backed and five opposed. (Three Democrats opposed it because the tax-increase threshold went too high, from the expected $250,000 per household to $400,000.) The second was the vote we just had to reopen the government and raise the debt limit. That, of course, passed the House by a comfortable margin, with the support of 87 Republicans, while 144 opposed.  The vote in the Senate was 81-18, with 27 Republicans voting aye and 18 nay. 

That’s it. Interestingly, those two votes show us a radical caucus in the Senate that grew in 10 months from five to 18, while in the House, the radicals have outnumbered the conservatives in a remarkably consistent way. But those are the only diversions from party unity.

From Tomasky’s view, the Senate votes are the only ones that matter. He writes that a growth of conservative Senators from five to eighteen is massive. It is no growth. The Obamacare vote—oh, excuse me, the unlimited debt limit vote just unmasked all those RINOs from the GOP Senators.

He refuses to examine the differences between the houses of Congress. The House members have only two-year terms. The Senate six-year terms. The political changes across the country manifest themselves more quickly in the House than in the Senate. Once a ‘moderate’, read RINO, is elected, he remains in the Senate for at least six-years. The House, however, is more responsive to the moods of the country and you will see political trends appear there well before any such change is reflected, if at all, in the Senate.

One could add one more basis of disagreement. Occasionally, the conservatives cast votes conceding that the government ought to be able to function as designed; you know, with agencies having people run them. But that happens only once about every two years.

Now is the time for them to stand up and say “enough.” An October 7 Washington Post-ABC poll found that just 52 percent of Republicans approved of how Republicans were handling the budget negotiations. That’s margin of error to 50-50. So half of the Republicans in the country disapprove of what the GOP just did.

But they might as well be zero, for they effectively have no representation. The regular conservatives—most conspicuously the craven Boehner, but all the others, too—did nothing to represent these people until the last possible second, and until the radicals demonstrated conclusively that they couldn’t pull off defunding Obamacare.

Think about that. Half of one of our major political parties, constituting many millions of citizens, barely has a voice in Washington. If they did have a voice, none of this late madness would have happened. But the legislators who ostensibly represent them are cowards, kittens, balled up in the corner. The radicals may be fighting a war. But the conservatives are executing a classic rearguard action. At best. And that’s not much of a civil war. And it says a great deal about the character of the Republican Party, and especially of the conservatives. History will remember.

Remember, when reading the text above from Tomasky, everywhere he writes, ‘conservative,’ substitute, RINO. He is correct, however, when he says that fighting a rearguard action is doomed to defeat.

There are a few nuggets of truth in Tomasky’s article. You have to do some label substitution to get there, but truth is there. Tomasky, if he is to ever be a believable political writer, must get outside the weasle-pit that is Washington, and spend some time out here in fly-over country. The nation’s political world does not solely exist only on the coasts.

If the GOP is to survive, something that is very much in doubt at the moment, it truly must become “No Country for Old Moderates”—Old RINOs. A house-cleaning is coming. It will take a few election cycles to weed them all out but that weeding will occur—if we aren’t, first, in a real civil war. Early skirmishes may have already occurred.

Facebook

Trends and Portents

Posted on by

Mark Levin’s book, The Liberty Amendments, has triggered a lot of discussion on the state of the nation, the Constitution and the constant violation of the Constitution by the federal government. Just scanning national opinion pieces this morning led to these headlines. One is a piece on the state of the government, another is on national trends and polls, still another proposes the country is in a pre-revolutionary state.

What Has Mark Levin Wrought?

By James V Capua, August 18, 2013

In The Liberty Amendments Mark Levin has delivered more than advertised. He promises a credible agenda for reinvigorating constitutional government based on an approach to the amendment process which avoids the liabilities of better known options.

Continued here…

Obama Flouts the Law

By Clarice Feldman, August 18, 2013

From his first presidential campaign to the present, the president, his party and his administration have openly flouted existing laws, and it doesn’t seem there is any legal means of stopping him short of impeachment.

Continued here…

America’s Tyranny Threshold

By Eileen F. Toplansky, August 19, 2013

As he finishes up his Martha’s Vineyard vacation, Barack Obama would be well-served to recall the fiery words of Jonathan Mayhew, who is famous for his sermons “espousing American rights — the cause of liberty, and the right and duty to resist tyranny.”

Continued here…

And finally, this one. Its subject is one few want to discuss all the while its one that is being discussed more every day.  Is a second American Revolution on the horizon?

Time for a New American Revolution?

By Richard Winchester, August 19, 2013

The United States of America was born in revolution. The Declaration of Independence asserted that people have a right of revolution. According to The Declaration, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [such as “life,” “liberty,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and “the consent of the governed”], it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The Declaration acknowledged that people should not, and will not, seek to overturn “long-established” governments “for light and transient reasons.” After “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” however, which are clearly aimed at establishing “absolute Despotism,” people have not only the “right,” but the “duty,” to “throw off such Government, and provide new guards for their future security.”

The U.S. has not experienced a successful revolution since the one between 1775 and 1783, despite Thomas Jefferson’s hope that “[t]he tree of liberty should be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Some think it’s time for a new American revolution. Moreover, many of the preconditions for a revolt exist.

Continued here…

One of Levin’s common quotes is that we are living in a post-Constitutional era. In other words, government, at least at the federal level, Congressmen and the Supreme Court no longer follow the constraints of the Constitution. The Obamacare decision forced by Chief Justice Roberts is a prime example of that latter segment of government. There was NO Constitutional basis for his decision. But, with his vote, he joined the liberal Justices and overrode the strenuous objections of the remaining Justices. Roberts followed the liberal diktat that the Constitution is whatever the Court says it is.

That is a lie. Few, however, were reluctant to stand up and say so.

Perhaps one of the best statements of the condition of our government and the accelerating discussion of revolution, is this article by In her article she cites the acts of Obama and the democrats in government that supports Levin’s premise that we no longer have a governing Constitution.

Today’s post as turned into a long one. I’ll close with this from Betsy McCaughey.

King Obama vs. Rule of Law

By on 8.14.13 @ 6:08AM

Have we ever seen such presidential contempt for constitutional principles and our nation’s history?

At an August 9 press conference, President Barack Obama said that when Congress won’t agree to what he wants, he will act alone. That statement, which he has made before, should send shivers through freedom-loving Americans.

The President was asked where he gets the authority to delay the Affordable Care Act’s employer mandate, even though the law states that the mandate “shall” go into effect January 1, 2014. The Obama administration had announced the delay on July 3, without seeking Congress’s help in changing the law.

In response, Obama said that “in a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up the Speaker and say, you know what, this is a tweak that doesn’t go to the essence of the law… so let’s make a technical change to the law. That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do.” 

But Obama explained that he took a different route because Republicans control the House of Representatives and ardently oppose Obamacare.

Obama’s statement reveals how disconnected this president is from this nation’s history and constitutional principles. Divided government is the norm in the United States. Most modern presidents have had to govern with an uncooperative Congress or at least one house of Congress controlled by the other major party. With the exception of Richard Nixon, these presidents — from Eisenhower, to Reagan, to Clinton, and both Bushes — have not tried to exempt themselves from the Constitution.

Article II, Sec. 3 of the Constitution commands the president to faithfully execute the law.

Courts have consistently ruled that presidents have little discretion about it. President Obama can’t pick and choose what parts of the Affordable Care Act he enforces and when. 
 

The framers duplicated the safeguards their English ancestors had fought hard to win against tyrannical monarchs. Most important, the English Bill of Rights of 1689 barred an executive from suspending the law. 

The tug and pull between the president and an uncooperative Congress is what the framers intended. It’s checks and balances in action. Obama has no patience for this constitutional system. In June 2012, the President announced that he would stop enforcing parts of the nation’s immigration laws, because “We can’t wait” for Congress to offer relief to young illegal immigrants brought into the country by their parents.

Now the President is rewriting the Affordable Care Act. Delaying the employer mandate is not a mere “tweak.” Because individuals will be required to have insurance as of January 1, 2014 or pay a penalty, some ten million currently uninsured or underinsured workers who would have gotten coverage at work under the employer mandate will now have to pay the penalty or go to the exchanges. That means more people enrolling on the exchanges, more dependence on government and a bigger bill for taxpayers. It’s not the law that Congress enacted.

Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) has urged Congress to vote against any continuing resolution to fund the federal government after September 30, as long as it funds this distorted version of Obamacare.

“Laws are supposed to be made by Congress, not… (by) the president,” Lee explained. If the administration is not prepared to fully enforce Obamacare as enacted, including the employer mandate, it should agree to delay the entire law and remove its funding from the budget.

Sadly most members of Congress are too busy looking out for themselves to stop the president from chipping away at the Constitution. Last week Republicans and Democrats conspired with the president to weasel out of Sect. 1312 of Obamacare, which requires members of Congress to get health coverage on the newly created exchanges. Congress was happy to let the President unconstitutionally give them a special taxpayer funded subsidy that no one else in America earning $174,000 would get.

Such self-dealing brings to mind what Benjamin Franklin warned about, as he and his fellow framers finished writing the Constitution. It’s a republic, said Franklin, “if you can keep it.”

If Congress refuses to use its power to restrain the Executive branch, we then reside in a dictatorship. No one with the ability to enforce constraints is willing to do so and thus participate in the dictatorship.

 

Facebook

Revolt!

Posted on by
“Get your a** in line.”
If the events of this last week tell us anything it is that we need more Tea Partiers in both houses of Congress and that the old establishment ‘Pub pols must go. The removal should start with Boehner and McConnell. I admit that Boehner has shown some spine in his refusals to allow any tax increases (maybe), but as far as actual cuts, he’s been the usual establishment wimp.

Boehner’s proposal yesterday didn’t meet his pledge for more cuts in spending that the increase of the debt limit.  When the CBO exposed the flaws, $800Billion over ten years instead of $1.2Trillion and only $1Billion in cuts this year, Boehner was quick to “revise” his scheme.  To what, we don’t know.  It’s a repeat of Pelosi’s, “You have to pass it to see what’s in it.”

Tea Party Activists Revolt Against Boehner Amid Debt Crisis

As House Speaker John Boehner frantically pieces together a plan to rescue the nation from financial disaster next week, members of the Tea Party movement who helped propel Republicans back into power last fall are calling for his head.
“Boehner must go,” Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips said in his blog on Wednesday, calling the speaker a “big government Republican” who “worships at the altar of massive spending.”
“We need a speaker who is a leader. We need someone with courage and vision. Boehner has none of those qualities. He is not a leader,” Phillips wrote. “John Boehner simply wishes to be the manager in chief of the welfare state. His vision of the GOP and the speakership involves golfing, drinking and not rocking the boat.”
 Boehner’s response was, “Get your a** in line.”
 
By:
Washington (CNN) – House Speaker John Boehner leveled tough words at fellow Republicans Wednesday, telling conservatives who are unhappy his bill doesn’t go far enough to “Get your ass in line.”
Boehner’s admonishment came during a closed-door meeting, during which House GOP leaders sought to rally support for their debt bill, according to two Republican sources who attended the meeting.

The Ohio Republican told members he was working hard and didn’t want to turn around and not see an army behind him.

 Yes, Boehner needs to go.  There are some that say he must be replaced as speaker with someone with true conservative principles, Representative Allen West would be good.  At least he stands behind his words. After Schultz attacked West, he responded by saying she’s, “not a lady,” and was, “vile.”  Of course, the dems get upset when a ‘Pub doesn’t just stand there and accepts insults without responding.

I have been unhappy with Marco Rubio because of some of his comments in the past.  However, he has the guts to stand up to the dems and uphold his conservative principles.

I repeat.  Boehner must go.  I sincerely hope the Ohio Tea Party runs someone against Boenher come the next primary.  Boehner is unfit to hold office.

A Modern-day Ancien Régime

Posted on by

Sometimes the most amazing insights come from outside.  In this particular case from that “progressive, Euro-centric” territory, the UK.  

We, here in the United States, have become used to being targets of ridicule by those in Europe and the UK due to their support of Obama’s attempt to socialize us along European lines. When we discover an article contrary to that viewpoint and one that supports conservative America, it’s a pleasant surprise.

The column below, by Nile Gardiner, is one of those surprises.  Gardiner, based in Washington, DC, is a foreign affairs analyst and political commentator. He has appeared on a number of media outlets including the BBC, Sky News, NPR, CNN and Fox News. He wrote this column that appeared in the UK Telegraph.

What the great French historian Alexis de Tocqueville would make of today’s Obama administration were he alive today is anyone’s guess. But I would wager that the author of L’Ancien Régime and Democracy in America would be less than impressed with the extravagance and arrogance on display among the White House elites that rule America as though they had been handed some divine right to govern with impunity.  (Links added. Crucis)

Wow! Comparing the Obamas and the democrats to Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the French aristocracy of the late 18th Century. It’s reminiscent of Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities but without, yet, the Revolution.

It is the kind of impunity that has been highlighted on the world stage this week by Michelle Obama’s hugely costly trip to Spain, which has prompted a New York Post columnist Andrea Tantaros to dub the First Lady a contemporary Marie Antoinette. As The Telegraph reports, while the Obamas are covering their own vacation expenses such as accommodation, the trip may cost US taxpayers as much as $375,000 in terms of secret service security and flight costs on Air Force Two. 

Legend tells us that when starving peasants interrupted Marie’s party by asking for food, she told them “to eat cake“—a luxury not available to the peasants. 

The timing of this lavish European vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions.

There is more at the Telegraph’s Web edition.  I urge you to read the entire article.