‘Tis Thursday

It’s not quite the Ides of March, but it’s close. This is a special week; a number of friends have birthdays this week and Mrs. Crucis and I will have our 46th wedding anniversary this coming weekend.

On top of it all, a good friend, who blogs under the name Old NFO, has a book out. If you like thrillers and mysteries, I urge you to buy this book: The Grey Man: -Vignettes.

The Bad Guys Don’t Stand a Chance

TGMVignettesTexas rancher and lawman John Cronin knows what it means to be tough. A decorated Vietnam vet with connections to law enforcement agencies all around the world, he’s thwarted smugglers and drug plots across the globe with more than a few narrow escapes. Whether it’s a sniper competition or teaching the feds a thing or two about police work, Cronin doesn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. Of course, this slow-talking lawman’s biggest challenge yet might be when his granddaughter Jesse falls in love with a Marine. When drug smugglers stir up trouble in Cronin’s backyard and try to kill Jesse and her new beau, all hell breaks loose, and Cronin and his granddaughter are just the people to set things right.

You can read more about The Grey Man, here.

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Ann Coulter is a massive disappointment. At one time, I respected her. She attacked liberals exposing their lies and underlying motives. She’s still attacking, except…now she’s attacking conservatives and backing the GOP establishment…RINOs, in other words like Mitch McConnell.

In September, 2013, Coulter couldn’t say enough good about Ted Cruz and supported him against liberal attacks. Now, it’s 2014 and Coulter has made 180º turn.

Just compare her statements, then: But instead of attacking Obamacare and the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Democrats over this massively unpopular law, far too many Republicans have been spending their time attacking Ted Cruz.” and now, in 2014, she supports those attacking Ted Cruz and the Tea Party.

First conservative icon Thomas Sowell turned on Ted Cruz, now it appears that Ann Coulter is souring on the Texas Republican as well.

Sowell published two columns this week slamming Cruz for being self-serving. Coulter praised the first of Sowell’s columns in a tweet Wednesday.

Later, in an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity” Wednesday night, Coulter doubled down on her praise of Sowell’s anti-Cruz column: ”I never push anyone else’s column but mine. Today everyone has got to read Thomas Sowell’s article.”

During the “Hannity” segment, Coulter attacked tea party groups for being filled with “shysters” and “conmen,” naming specifically the Senate Conservatives Fund as an example. The Senate Conservatives Fund was a key outside group that supported Cruz in his fight to “Defund Obamacare” last fall, which ultimately led to a government shutdown.

“And these people are just trying to get money off good Americans by saying we’re going after ‘establishment Republicans,” Coulter complained about tea party groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund. “How about going after Democrats?”

“Do not trust anyone who says they are trying to defeat ‘establishment Republicans,’” she added. — The Daily Caller.

Coulter appears to be speaking out of both sides of her mouth. She can’t get away with supporting Cruz five months ago and then supporting the Cruz-bashers now. Her attacks against the Tea Party is ludicrous as is her support today for the GOP establishment—read that as supporting McConnell and Boehner.

She claims that ‘Pubs must win regardless. Wrong, Ann Coulter, electing ‘Pubs who rollover and vote like democrats is a defeat. The way for the country to win is to elect conservatives.

Why is Coulter flipping? Maybe because her consulting company is dependent on the GOP establishment for income? Maybe because McConnell and Boehner have threatened that if she doesn’t support them and attack conservatives she’ll no longer get those lucrative speaking gigs? Or, just maybe, Coulter has been a fraud all along whose allegiance is not to a republican philosophy or conservative principles, but to the all-mighty dollar? Likely it’s all-of-the-above.

Sold out again

BOEHNERThe Drudge headline this morning is uncannily accurate. On it is a photo of John Boehner, looking down his nose at us…just like Obama. Why? Because he, with McConnell, are about to sell us out. Again!

I first saw the news from an email alert by Erick Erickson of Red State. That was followed by others. Then I saw the Drudge headliner and I knew the fix was in. Boehner and McConnell have been embarrassed by the revolt in their ranks by the conservatives. Boehner received no-so-subtle threats to his Speakership. McConnell had a hissy-fit and behind closed doors, cussed Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.

Neither Boehner nor McConnell care about the effects of higher debt, funding Obamacare, the continued degradation of our nation. Nor are they concerned by the growing dictatorial acts by Obama. Boehner and McConnell are firmly entrenched as members of The Ruling Class. Big government is their personal goal as much as it is for Reid, Obama and the dems.

So what is their current plan? To give in and approve a debt-limit increase AND funding Obamacare. No spending cuts. No reining of government. No, just complete capitulation.

House GOP Preparing to Give Up

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  October 10th, 2013 at 04:30 AM

I’m being told by several sources that Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are plotting to give up trying to either defund or delay Obamacare.

This comes at the same time the Obama administration admits it will be months before their Obamacare website will be fixed and Kathleen Sebelius is saying if people want out of the mandate they can pay a fine.

Nonetheless, Cantor, Boehner, and with them Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn are expected to cave in and fully fund, unimpeded, Obamacare.

They will work up a new deal that includes a debt ceiling increase with a few sops to the GOP as cover. The only change they are still considering it the medical device tax repeal, which is being heavily lobbied for by former Boehner and McConnell staffers who left for K Street.

A number of Democrats who are recipients of campaign cash along with these Republicans may provide a crony capitalist bridge over which this one tax repeal can pass while leaving in place all the other taxes, penalties, and fees.

But John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, and John Cornyn will ensure that Obamacare is fully funded and give the American public no delay like businesses have.

In doing so, they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.

 I’m not so sure about that last paragraph, but Boehner and McConnell are undermining any confidence by the GOP core in the party establishment in Washington. If the rank and file of the GOP have no confidence in their party, what obligation do they have to continue to vote for the party? None.

The Liberty Amendments

Levins_The_Liberty_Amendments

Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments

Mark Levin’s new book, The Liberty Amendments, is getting a lot of press since its release earlier this week. It rose to #1 on the Amazon best seller list on its first day.

According to Levin, the book is how to restore the Constitution using means already available within the Constitution. Brent Bozell and Cal Thomas have written articles on the book as shown below.

A constitutional cure for what ails us

BY: Cal Thomas August 15, 2013 | 5:00 am

When I studied the U.S. Constitution in school, I learned that for a bill to become law, it first had to be introduced in either the House or the Senate. Today, a cynic might say for a bill to become law, a member of Congress must first be introduced to a lobbyist.

Much of government’s dysfunction, cost and overreach can be traced to the abandonment of the constitutional boundaries the Founders put in place for the purpose of controlling the lust for power.

In his new book, “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic,” Mark R. Levin asserts the U.S. government isn’t performing up to standards established by the Founders because, like a flooding river, politicians have breached their constitutional limits.

Levin, who graduated with honors and a law degree from Temple University and who hosts a popular syndicated radio talk show, believes “the nation has entered an age of post-constitutional tyranny” resulting in this attitude by our leaders: “The public is not to be informed but indoctrinated, manipulated and misled.”

Before this is dismissed as the ranting of a far-right extremist, consider the case Levin builds: The executive branch has assumed for itself “broad lawmaking power,” creating departments and agencies that contravene the doctrine known as separation of powers; Congress creates monstrosities like Obamacare that have no constitutional origin, spending the country into record debt and making America dependent on foreign governments, especially China; the judiciary consists of men and women who are “no more virtuous than the rest of us and in some cases less so, as they suffer from the usual human imperfections and frailties.”

And yet they make decisions in the name of the Constitution that cannot be defended according to the words of the Founders, who believed the judiciary should be the least powerful and consequential branch of government.

In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary branch would be the weakest of the three because it had “no influence over either the sword or the purse. … It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.”

Who can credibly disagree with Levin when he writes: “What was to be a relatively innocuous federal government, operating from a defined enumeration of specific grants of power, has become an ever-present and unaccountable force. It is the nation’s largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider and pension guarantor.”

To return America to its constitutional boundaries, Levin proposes a series of “liberty amendments” to the Constitution, beginning with one limiting the terms of congressmen so they might avoid the bipartisan virus that infects even some who believe in limited government, mutating them into power-hungry influence seekers with little regard for the public good.

Another amendment would establish term limits for Supreme Court justices. “The point is,” argues Levin, “that the Framers clearly intended to create intrinsic limitations on the ability of any one branch or level of government to have unanswered authority over the other.”

Another amendment would establish spending limits for the government. Another would grant states the authority to check Congress.

Levin admits these amendments are unlikely to win congressional approval because in Washington power is not willingly relinquished. That’s why he proposes the states bypass Congress, as the Framers provided, and pass these amendments themselves.

As Levin notes, “Article V [of the Constitution] expressly grants state legislatures significant authority to rebalance the constitutional structure for the purpose of restoring our founding principles should the federal government shed its limitations, abandon its original purpose and grow too powerful, as many delegates in Philadelphia and the state conventions had worried it might.”

Americans who care about the health and future of their country have the power through the states to force the federal government to abide by its founding document. Mark Levin’s book is a serious work that can serve as an action plan for curing what ails us.

What’s needed is less focus on Washington and more on state capitals where legislators are more likely to be responsive to the demands of “we the people.”

One of the core concepts of Levin’s proposals is the restoration of federalism between the states and Washington instead of the centralist government we now have. Levin calls this ‘statism.’ Whether we call it a centralist government or statism, the result is the same—more power in Washington and less to the states and individuals.

The other review appeared on Investor’s Business Daily by Brent Bozell.

Mark Levin’s New Book Could Help Americans Regain Their Liberty

By Posted 08/14/2013 06:18 PM ET

Only those happily trampling on the last vestiges of freedom will deny that our federal government as a constitutional republic has ceased to function.

The president can no longer control (nor does this one want to control) the enormous and ever-expanding bureaucracy functioning as a government by fiat.

The legislative branch, so corrupted, so drunk by the allure of power, so disdainful of its constituents, is unable to stop its bankrupting ways.

The judiciary is perhaps worst. The Supreme Court is openly rejecting the authority of the Constitution itself.

If the federal government refuses to adhere to the enumerated powers of the Constitution, what can the citizenry do about it? The events of the past five years (more, actually) prove this.

It has become virtually impossible to stop the agenda of a radical chief executive who brazenly uses the federal government as his personal political machine. It is almost impossible to defeat an incumbent in Congress with all the advantages it has awarded itself. For all intents it’s impossible to replace a member of the Supreme Court.

The left is content with this terrible turn of events. By “transformation” they meant the transfer of power to the state.

Conservatives are loath to declare American exceptionalism dead, yet are powerless to stop the statist steamroller. With every cycle, the situation worsens. At some point the unthinkable — tyranny — is upon us. We are running out of time. Only radical surgery will save the patient now.

Enter Dr. Mark Levin with his new book, “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic.” Levin is a Constitutional scholar — and he shines.

He argues passionately that the federal government can be brought under control only if new limitations are thrust upon it by its citizenry. He proposes a Constitutional convention, not one called by Congress but by two-thirds of state legislatures. It would require a three-fourths margin to pass any amendment. It is the lesser known of the two options provided by Article V of the Constitution.

What should a Constitutional convention tackle? Levin offers 11 amendments for consideration, with appropriate subdivisions, each carefully researched and designed to reduce the power of the state.

  • Term limits for Congress is the first liberty amendment Levin offers; it is my view also the most important. Only when there are limits (12 years) will Congress be populated by men and women driven only by the call to service, not the siren song of power.
  • The millions delivered by special interests for the re-election of incumbents who, in turn, reward said interests with billions in grants, contracts, tax shelters and the like — will cease.

Levin calls for other limitations on Congress.

  • He proposes an amendment to limit federal spending and another to limit taxation. The combination will restore fiscal sanity while devolving power from the state.
  • He offers an amendment to repeal the 17th Amendment, returning to the Article 1 mandate that senators be chosen by their state legislators.
  • What about the Supreme Court? “(Should five individuals be making political and public policy decisions and imposing them on every corner of the nation . . . as they pursue even newer and more novel paths around the Constitution in exercising judicial review?”
  • Levin notes: Sometimes mistakes are made (Roberts, anyone?) and America shouldn’t be punished for the rest of that jurist’s life. He proposes 12-year term limits for them, as well.
  • What can be done to control, even reduce the size and scope of the bureaucracy? All federal departments and agencies must be re-authorized by Congress every three years or be terminated — that’s what.
  • There’s a liberty amendment to protect and promote free enterprise, now under assault.
  • One to protect private property given the ability of the federal government suddenly to steal it.
  • Amendments to increase the power of the states.
  • Finally, an amendment to protect the voting process.

Who would have thought such amendments would be needed? That’s the point. It’s the nature of the crisis.

Levin quotes Tocqueville reflections on the first Constitutional Convention: “(I)t is new in history of society to see a great people turn a calm and scrutinizing eye upon itself when apprised by the legislature that the wheels of its government are stopped.”

It is time for our legislatures once more to issue the clarion call.

Levin hopes “The Liberty Amendments” will launch a national discussion. It will. Levin is a consequential man, and this is a consequential book.

Some critics will dismiss the idea. But nothing else is working, and nothing else will do. We have reached the tipping point.

Levin, on his radio show (locally KCMO-710 at 5pm weekdays), jumped the gun on the book’s release. He began talking about some of the concepts late last week with some tantalizing hints.

If you have ever read Levin’s bio, you’ll quickly see he knows government—from the inside and well as the outside. His Landmark Legal Foundation is currently suing the EPA over violations of law and their own regulations.

Levin wants the states to apply pressure to the central government. He outlines means and methods for them to do so. I don’t have a copy yet, but I’m looking forward to reading this latest Levin book.

A Post-Constitutional country

Mark Levin has a new book out, Ameritopia: ‘We Now Live in a Post-Constitutional Country.  I heard him being interviewed the other day on the radio and later on Fox’s Hannity show.

“I believe to a great extent we now live in a post-constitutional country, where much of the Constitution is ignored or evaded,” Levin told CNSNews.com.

From the events starting with Obama’s election, we have watched him and the democrats abuse and violate the constitution. The latest abuse was Obama’s “recess” appointment to install three union goons to the head of the NLRB and to appoint the head of the new Consumer Protection agency.  The problem was…the Senate wasn’t in recess.  In fact, the Senate hasn’t recessed since 2006 when Harry Reid used the tactic to block recess appointments by George Bush.  In the case of the Consumer agency, the law clearly states the head must be confirmed by the Senate. There is no provision for a recess appointment for that office.

In an interview with CNSNews, Levin discussed his new book.

The book, released Monday, compares the Utopian and unworkable schemes laid out by political philosophers from Plato to Thomas Hobbes with the vision of natural law, God-given rights, and individual liberty that inspired the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
“Utopianism is not new,” Levin writes in “Ameritopia.” “It has been repackaged countless times—since Plato and before. It is as old as tyranny itself.  In democracies, its practitioners legislate without end.  In America, law is piled upon law in contravention and contradiction of the governing law—the Constitution.”

The core of Utopianism and most assuredly true with the left in America is the subordination of the individual to the larger society.  The individual cannot be allowed any means to oppose or ignore the dictates that govern the Uptopia. In the views of the Utopiaist, the individual is nothing more than a small, obedient cog in the greater machine.

That view is contrary to the concepts of the Founders and to their vision that is completely contrary to the ambitions of the Utopia dictators.

“What I want the readers to understand, what I want the public to understand is, this is not new and it’s going to destroy us,” said Levin. “It’s going to destroy us because it is an attack on the individual. It is an attack on the nature of human beings.”

I would strongly suggest you go to the CNS website, read the article and watch the videos.  It will be an education.

Bye, Buy Borders?

Borders Books filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this Wednesday. Their stock has fallen below $1/share (last I looked it hovered around $0.10/share.) The CEO has promised a recovery. The company will close 1/3 of the existing stores and “reorganize.” This time last year, there were three Borders stores in the KC that I know of—two on the Kansas side and one in Lees Summit, MO. There may have been another north of the river but I’ve never seen it.

Border’s CEO sent the message below via e-mail to everyone who was in the “Border’s Bucks” program.

I’m a “Border’s Bucks” program member. It has saved me some money of the past few years. But I’ve not bought a dead-tree book since last summer. I’ve gone digital.

Border’s website is…I’m a loss for words to describe how cumbersome, slow, inefficient, slow, crippled it is for ebook users. For example, to sort by author name is not an option. You can browse through ebooks by author name A-Z or Z-A, by release date (current to past and vice versa), by price (low to high and high to low), but you have to jump through numerous hoops to list ebooks by a single writer.

Brick ‘n Mortar stores are fading. On-line is in and if Borders wants to survive, the first thing they’ll do is replace—in its entirety, their website.

I hate to see any bookseller go under. But Darwin’s law applies to business as well. So far, Borders is not surviving.