Restore Free Speech

Friends of Clinton

2011-01-02T14:36:00.000-08:00

Friends of Clinton

Well if this is what happened to friends of the Clintons I’d hate to be on ob’s hate list:
This is what happened to those who had dirt on Clinton:

1 – James McDougal – Clinton’s convicted Whitewater partner died of an apparent heart attack, while in solitary confinement. He was a key witness in Ken Starr’s investigation.

2 – Mary Mahoney – A former White House intern was murdered July 1997 at a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Georgetown. The murder happened just after she was to go public with her story of sexual harassment in the White House.

3 – Vince Foster – Former white House councilor, and colleague of Hillary Clinton at Little Rock’s Rose Law firm. Died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.

4 – Ron Brown – Secretary of Commerce and former DNC Chairman. Reported to have died by impact in a plane crash. A pathologist close to the investigation reported that there was a hole in the top of Brown’s skull resembling a gunshot wound. At the time of his death Brown was being investigated, and spoke publicly of his willingness to cut a deal with prosecutors.

5 – C. Victor Raiser II and Montgomery Raiser, Major players in the Clinton fund raising organization died in a private plane crash in July 1992.

6 – Paul Tulley – Democratic National Committee Political Director found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock, September 1992… Described by Clinton as a “Dear friend and trusted advisor.”

7- Ed Willey – Clinton fund raiser, found dead November 1993 deep in the woods in VA of a gunshot wound to the head. Ruled a suicide. Ed Willey died on the same day his wife Kathleen Willey claimed Bill Clinton groped her in the oval office in the White House. Ed Willey was involved in several Clinton fund raising events.

8 – Jerry Parks – Head of Clinton’s gubernatorial security team in Little Rock. Gunned down in his car at a deserted intersection outside Little Rock. Park’s son said his father was building a dossier on Clinton. He allegedly threatened to reveal this information. After he died the files were mysteriously removed from his house.

9 – James Bunch – Died from a gunshot suicide. It was reported that he had a “Black Book” of people which contained names of influential people who visited prostitutes in Texas and Arkansas.

10 – James Wilson – Was found dead in May 1993 from an apparent hanging suicide. He was reported to have ties to Whitewater.

11- Kathy Ferguson, ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head. It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere. Danny Ferguson was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit. Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.

12 – Bill Shelton – Arkansas State Trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson. Critical of the suicide ruling of his fiancee, he was found dead in June, 1994 of a gunshot wound also ruled a suicide at the grave site of his fiancee.

13 – Gandy Baugh – Attorney for Clinton’s friend Dan Lassater, died by jumping out a window of a tall building January, 1994. His client was a convicted drug distributor.

14 – Florence Martin – Accountant & sub-contractor for the CIA, was related to the Barry Seal Mean Airport drug smuggling case. He died of three gunshot wounds.

15 – Suzanne Coleman – Reportedly had an affair with Clinton when he was Arkansas Attorney General. Died of a gunshot wound to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. Was pregnant at the time of her death.

16 – Paula Grober – Clinton’s speech interpreter for the deaf from 1978 until her death December 9, 1992. She died in a one car accident.

17 – Danny Casolaro – Invest igative reporter. Investigating Mean Airport and Arkansas Development Finance Authority. He slit his wrists, apparently, in the middle of his investigation.

18 – Paul Wilcher – Attorney investigating corruption at Mean Airport with Casolaro and the 1980 “October Surprise” was found dead on a toilet June 22, 1993 in his Washington DC apartment. Had delivered a report to Janet Reno three weeks before his death.

19 – Jon Parnell Walker – Whitewater investigator for Resolution Trust Corp. Jumped to his death from his Arlington, Virginia apartment balcony August15, 1993. He was investigating the Morgan Guarantee scandal.

20 – Barbara Wise – Commerce Department staffer. Worked closely with Ron Brown and John Huang. Cause of death unknown. Died November 29, 1996. Her bruised, nude body was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce.

21- Charles Meissner – Assistant Secretary of Commerce who gave John Huang special security clearance, died shortly thereafter in a small plane crash.

22 – Dr. Stanley Heard – Chairman of the National Chiropractic Health Care Advisory Committee, died with his attorney Steve Dickson in a small plane crash. Dr. Heard, in addition to serving on Clinton’s advisory council personally treated Clinton’s mother, stepfather and brother.

23 – Barry Seal – Drug running pilot out of Mean Arkansas, death was no accident.

24 – Johnny Lawhorn Jr. – Mechanic, found a check made out to Bill Clinton in the trunk of a car left at his repair shop. He was found dead after his car had hit a utility pole.

25 – Stanley Huggins – Investigated Madison Guarantee. His death was a purported suicide and his report was never released.

26- Hershell Friday – Attorney and Clinton fund raiser died March 1, 1994 when his plane exploded.

27 – Kevin Ives and Don Henry – Known as “The boys on the track” case. Reports say the boys may have stumbled upon the Mean Arkansas airport drug operation. A controversial case, the initial report of death said, due to falling asleep on railroad tracks. Later reports claim the two boys had been slain before being placed on the tracks. Many linked to the case died before their testimony could come before a Grand Jury.

THE FOLLOWING PERSONS HAD INFORMATION ON THE IVES/HENRY CASE:

28 – Keith Coney – Died when his motorcy cle slammed into the back of a truck, July 1988.

29 – Keith McMaskle – Died stabbed 113 times, Nov, 1988.

30 – Gregory Collins – Died from a gunshot wound January 1989.

31 – Jeff Rhodes – He was shot, mutilated and found burned in a trash dump in April 1989.

33 – James Milan – Found decapitated. However, the Coroner ruled his death was due to “natural causes.”

34 – Jordan Kettleson – Was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup truck in June 1990.

35 – Richard Winters – A suspect in the Ives / Henry deaths. He was killed in a set-up robbery July 1989.

THE FOLLOWING CLINTON BODYGUARDS ARE DEAD:

36 – Major William S. Barkley Jr.

37 – Captain Scott J. Reynolds

38 – Sgt. Brian Hanley

39 – Sgt . Tim Sabel

40 – Major General William Robertson

41 – Col. William Densberger

42 – Col. Robert Kelly

43 – Spec. Gary Rhodes

44 – Steve Willis

45 – Robert Williams

46 – Conway LeBleu

47 – Todd McKeehan

Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots Part 2 The Foundation

2010-11-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots
Part 2 – The Foundation

The 1st Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The church’s responsibility is to inform the public as to the qualifications required of our leaders. In Exodus 18:21, God spoke to Moses through the wise counsel of his father-in-law, Jethro, saying, “Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:”. These “rulers” were to settle minor disputes themselves, but would bring major issues to Moses for final judgment. Those men became the government of the nation of Israel.
Until 1954 we could “name names” and compare candidates or office holders to each other and to Biblical standards. Now we can only generalize. The changes to the IRS tax codes that Congress passed in 1954 prohibited the church from informing the people of the character of a political candidate. That change to tax laws prohibited the free exercise of religion and directly violates the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Public schools were originally established and funded by tax dollars so that the people would be taught to read and understand the Word of God with the Bible being its main source for information. If government tried to pass legislation that was contrary to God’s Word the people would know it and then take action to stop it. We have allowed our government to redefine our Constitution and read things into it that our Founding Fathers would never have allowed. We have allowed activist judges to read into our Constitution the “right to privacy” by which a woman can obtain an abortion at any time for any reason.
To fully understand just what the role of the church is supposed to be in this nation we have to look at the role of the church before our independence, during our fight for independence and up until 1954 when the church was taken out of the political arena. Many of you will be surprised to learn how deeply involved the church and the Word of God was in the drafting of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. I know that there will be many pastors that will be shocked at the church’s involvement in the development of our government. Too many pastors believe that the church shouldn’t be involved in politics at all. What this book will reveal will be unfamiliar to many pulpits. Revisionist historians have taught what THEY want you to believe instead of what the real history actually is.
There was a book printed that contained the writings of George Washington on four different areas of life. The original book contained comments by his contemporaries. The book is now being printed again. However, the comments are now by revisionists and they have left out almost all of the religious references from the original book and all of the commentaries of his contemporaries and refer to him as a deist. How you can print a book that is full of outright lies and call it historically accurate is beyond me.
Our Founding Fathers took their faith very seriously but many today would like you to believe differently. When the Massachusetts Bay colony was established in 1620, the “pilgrims” established why they were there before they got off of the boat. They wrote the Mayflower Compact.
“In the Name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our Sovereign Lord, King James, by the Grace of God, or England, France and Ireland, King defender of the Faith,
Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid;”
The “Ends aforesaid” was the advancement of the Christian faith. Our Founding Fathers lived their faith. Most churches today have a 30 minute message ending with “Call our office Monday-Friday between 9-5 if you want to get saved.” Most modern Americans couldn’t handle the church services in those days. They usually lasted from 4-6 hours and most of the town would attend. It was a firm belief of our Founding Fathers that to serve in public office you had to be a Christian.
We generally understand and agree that the primary purpose and function of the United States Supreme Court is to decide if the laws that are passed by Congress fall within the parameters set out by the Constitution. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court stated, “Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers. It is the duty as well as the privilege and the interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians as their rulers.”
Another of our Founding Fathers was Patrick Henry. His most famous (shortened) statement was ”Give me liberty or give me death.” This is not being taught in schools any more. It promotes patriotism and self-worth and that causes problems with dictating what some people want you to believe. Another statement he made which I assure you will never be taught in public schools is this one: “It can’t be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded NOT by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion but on the gospel of Jesus Christ.” The revisionist historians want you to believe that Patrick Henry was a deist. (A deist generally believes a supreme being created the universe and that this truth can be known without either faith or organized religion. In most cases, a deist also rejects the idea that God intervenes in human affairs.) The revisionists want you to believe that most of the Founding Fathers were deists, even though ALL evidence proves otherwise. People simply don’t research anything out for themselves. There were 55 signers of the Constitution- 29 were Episcopalians, several were Methodist, and some were Baptist. There was only one alleged deist and that was Ben Franklin, but even he had enough sense to know that Providence should be called upon at times. Members of the Constitutional Convention had spent weeks debating key provisions of the Constitution without making any progress. During that time of intense debate, Franklin addressed the Convention on June 28, 1787. A part of that speech reads, “All of us who were engaged in this struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending Providence in our favor.” So, that statement by Ben Franklin effectively destroys the revisionist’s theory about him. The next few sentences of his speech “seals the deal” on refuting his so-called deism:
“To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting, in peace, on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend, or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see this truth, that God governs the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”
Following that speech, our Founding Fathers spent four hours in prayer. In a public facility, our government officials had prayer and then followed that with preaching - the message was so moving that John Adams wrote to his wife about how important it was. From that moment on the Constitution began to come together with surprising ease.
Thirteen years earlier, Samuel Adams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who would become the governor of Massachusetts, wrote; “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom all men ought to be obedient, He reigns in heaven from the rising to the setting of the sun. Let His kingdom come.” He also made this statement: “Pray that the light of the gospel and the right of conscience may be continued to the people of the United America and that His Holy Word may be improved by them so that the Name of God will be exalted and their liberty and happiness be secure. That He would be pleased to bless our federal government.” The Foundation is laid.
© Pastor Roger Anghis

Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots Part 1- The Beginning

2010-11-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots
Part 1- The Beginning

The religious roots of our nation go very deep. Over the last 50-75 years we have lost a tremendous amount of truth: the history of how Christian religion not only governed the daily lives of our Founding Fathers but how that same faith was always a major factor in the politics of this nation.
In his seminal work, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler stated that the bigger the lie and the more often that it is told the easier it is to get the masses to believe it. In the 30’s and 40’s Hitler did just, that and the result was a world war that cost the lives of over 60 million people.
In 1947 our Supreme Court ruled that the 1st Amendment had erected a “wall of separation” between the church and state, and it had to remain impregnable. There was no preceding evidence of this “truth” in any court ruling for over 170 years, and not even in the first Supreme Court was the church/state position challenged. Yet, the Supreme Court of 1947 decided that our Founding Fathers were uninformed as to the meaning of the 1st Amendment. The 1947 Supreme Court for the first time used ONLY the phrase “separation of church and state” instead of the whole context of that sentence which is not found in any of our founding documents, but in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. A letter was written to then President Jefferson because they had a concern that the US might try to establish a state church as had been done in England. The state ran the church and taxed the people to support the church. When you read the entire letter that Jefferson wrote you will find that he does use the statement “separation of church and state” but it is easily understood that what he is talking about is keeping the government out of the affairs of the church, not keeping the church completely out of the government. In other words the ‘separation’ was an institutional separation not an influential separation. The Supreme Court decision of 1947 by liberal judges put on the Supreme Court by FDR, completely redefined the 1st Amendment. In that day 97% of the people of this nation declared an allegiance to God and in a nation where the majority rules, the 3% of our nation that did not believe in God ruled over the 97%.
In the early 1950’s one of the Supreme Court justices warned that we had better STOP using the phrase “separation of church and state” without it’s proper context or people would begin believing that it was part of our Constitution. Most of the people I talk to today about the so-called “separation of church and state” do believe that it is part of our Constitution. The bigger the lie and the more you tell it makes it easier for the masses to believe it.
Preachers today don’t believe that the church is supposed to be involved in the political arena. Because the church does not address this part of American life we have politicians that won’t protect our borders, we have politicians that believe that it is a woman’s right to destroy her unborn child and we have politicians that refuse to support our troops fighting the war on terror. The Bible teaches us that however the church goes, the nation goes. Preachers today don’t have a problem with how the government has taken our right to be involved in the politics of this nation away from us. Without the church’s influence our politicians have begun to take this nation down a path of destruction. And because pastors are afraid of losing their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status, they won’t stand up for their rights.
I have tried to help pastors educate their people as to what they can and should be doing in terms of their involvement with political issues, and the typical response is, “We don’t do anything political”. I invited 200 pastors to a meeting concerning this and only one pastor showed up! Some pastors won’t even take a side on abortions and same-sex marriages for fear of losing members or their coveted 501(c)3. They claim that it is a political issue. It has become a political issue but more importantly it is a moral issue that the church should be addressing. Half of the people sitting in the pews are living together without the benefit of marriage but the church won’t preach against it for fear of offending someone. One pastor I talked to felt “comfortable” with the American church’s present lack of involvement in the political arena. I used to feel the same way until one day the Holy Spirit asked me, ‘What if I’m not comfortable with the lack of involvement of the church in the political arena?” That is the question that pastors must ask themselves. Is God happy that the church is absent from the political arena and from the government?
There was a point in time in this nation when you couldn’t get elected UNLESS you confessed Jesus as Lord and had a record of attending church regularly. Religion was very important during the days of our Founding Fathers. One man was fined $500 for using the Name of the Lord in vain. That was over a year’s wages at the time. Today you hear people inside the church building using language that reminds you of a drunken sailor. I even heard the son of a pastor who could cuss better than some on the streets. Just a short while ago a man in a public meeting cursed and was arrested and jailed. When he got before a judge, the judge told the police that they had violated his right of free speech. What kind of place have we come to in the church and in our nation?
Today’s churches preach a lukewarm message not wanting to offend anyone. Any time you teach the truth somebody is going to be offended. Lukewarm messages have never built a strong church. Revelation 3:16 “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of My mouth.”
Many of the preachers that I talk to don’t believe that the church is supposed to be involved in the political arena. But in the Bible God ALWAYS had a man or woman of God close to the king, ALWAYS! Saul, Israel’s first king had Samuel the prophet. Every king, whether they were godly or not, had a man of God to influence them. Even our presidents have had godly men to influence them. One man, Billy Graham, has counseled and prayed with every president since Harry Truman. Eleven presidents have been blessed by Dr. Graham’s prayer and influence. Every president we have had has had a man of God to advise him and pray for him. Our presidents have not always taken the advice of these godly men just as the kings in the Old Testament didn’t always take heed to the advice of the prophets. We have seen some presidents ignore the godly principles of our Founding Fathers and take our nation down a path that leads away from the things of God. One such president was Woodrow Wilson. He was a racist and a progressive with beliefs that were closely akin to Marxism. Later, we had Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the White House. He set this nation on the road to socialism and there are many today in that same political party that are hell-bent on finishing that journey. They support forcing religious organizations to hire homosexuals. They passed “hate crimes” legislation that could make preaching the Biblical view of homosexuality against the law. Over the years, they have supported the removal of religion from the public view including displays of the Ten Commandment, pictures of Jesus and the removal of prayer from government meetings.
The church has to stand up for its rights or we will lose all of our rights. Many pastors say that we have to abide by the laws. But when the laws of man violate the laws of God, Christians, and especially preachers of the gospel, are required to obey God! When John and Peter were brought before the Sanhedrin and told to no longer speak in the Name of Jesus, Peter refused to follow that order: Acts 4:18 “And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
(19) But Peter and John answered and said unto them, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye”.
(20) For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
Until 1954 the church leaders could talk about political candidates from the pulpit openly, and whether the individuals and their words and actions were godly or ungodly. We could talk about political parties and whether their platforms and candidates stood for godly things or ungodly things. In 1948, Lyndon Johnson won his first election to the senate by a total of only 87 votes. He had a lot of political connections and was able to stop every attempt at a recount. During the 1954 senatorial campaign, this information was leaked to two 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that then began to inform the public about a possible rigged election. As a result, Johnson had language inserted into the IRS codes that barred any 501(c)3 from supporting or opposing a political candidate or a political party. Johnson was able to silence his opposition. The church had been silenced ever since.
© Pastor Roger Anghis

2010-10-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

Time to reunite church and state

John Adams, our second U.S. president, famously observed: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The U.S. Constitution, indeed our entire republican form of government, was crafted by deeply pious men who were overwhelmingly Christian. It was fashioned within the context and framework of the Judeo-Christian zeitgeist of the time and was further intended to function in harmony with a Judeo-Christian worldview – period. Though leftists may deny this reality, it remains indisputable fact. The historical record is unequivocal.

Patrick Henry said this: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!"

George Washington agreed:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. … [R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

I'll say it: I agree with George Washington. Those godless, postmodern secular-socialists, who, today, hold the reins of government, are unpatriotic. Fringe leftists like Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid seek to "subvert" Washington's "great pillars" of "religion and morality" and are distinctly un-American for it.

Part and parcel of Obama's agenda has been to push, at a fever pitch, the most extremist pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-Christian agenda in American history.

Indeed, in contrast with the deeply held religious and moral values embraced by our Founding Fathers, today's America is governed by an "immoral" and "irreligious" chief executive. Barack Obama is the high priest of secular-socialism.

He seeks to undermine – if not altogether dismantle – the American exceptionalism that, hitherto, has been fundamentally woven throughout our national fabric.

He aspires to the lowest common denominator. He seeks to uproot Ronald Reagan's "shining city on a hill" and relocate the "land of the free and the home of the brave" to a much lower altitude, alongside those Euro-Marxist nations he so admires and wistfully desires to emulate.

The U.S. Constitution was neither intended to, nor can it, work in harmony with the postmodern secular-socialist worldview embraced by those on the political left. Such a worldview is, by its very nature, counter-constitutional.

Whereas the Constitution was intended to guarantee individual liberty and justice, limit the size and scope of the federal government and secure freedom of speech and religious expression; the goal of the secular-socialist is to control nearly every aspect of an individual's life, to massively expand the size and scope of the federal government and to suppress – if not altogether smother – freedom of speech and religious expression.

To the secular-socialist, the Constitution is a relevant document only insofar as it constitutes an encumbrance to "progress." It must be circumvented and overcome at all cost, and by any means available. Why else do you suppose President Obama has called our original "contract with America" – the U.S. Constitution – an "imperfect document," a "living document … that reflects some deep flaws in American culture ..."?

Rather than properly viewing our Constitution as a God-inspired tool to be used in furtherance of Washington's "indispensable supports" of "religion and morality," this arrogant little man, with singular resolve and discipline, forges ahead with his thinly veiled, yet wholly destructive left-wing political agenda: Namely, to "fundamentally change America" to reflect his own secular-socialist self-image.

Au contraire, Monsieur le Président.

Enter the tea-party revolution (a national clamoring for a return to our nation's founding principles). America has coldly and quite vocally rejected Obama's anti-American agenda.

You've heard it said, but I'll say it again: People with conservative values – particularly Christians – need to take back America. We must take charge of government at every level from the municipal hall to the White House.

It's time for men of the cloth – as they did during the first American Revolution – to exercise true leadership, return to the pulpit and call for national revival, both spiritual and political. As George Washington so astutely observed, the notion that political issues, and those of "religion and morality," are somehow mutually exclusive, is patently absurd. They are one in the same.

Am I calling for a theocracy? Of course not. Am I calling for men and women of strong faith to retake control of all high-level positions of influence in government, academia, media and entertainment? Absolutely.

The late, great Rev. Jerry Falwell perhaps said it best: "I'm being accused of being controversial and political. I'm not political. But moral issues that become political, I still fight. It isn't my fault that they've made these moral issues political. But because they have doesn't stop the preachers of the Gospel from addressing them."

Pastors, priests and rabbis: It's up to you to address, head-on, these moral issues. Don't be intimidated by anti-theist groups like the ACLU, American's United for Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way and the like. These hard-left outfits engage in dishonest letter-writing schemes and file frivolous threats with the IRS in hopes of silencing you. Don't be silenced.

Guess how many churches have been penalized, or have lost tax-exempt status due to even one of these complaints: Exactly zero. To call these groups "paper tigers" is too strong. They're paper kittens.

Pastors: You have an absolute constitutional right, if not a duty, to stand at the pulpit and educate your flock about the hot-button political/moral issues of the day. You also have an absolute right to tell your flock exactly where candidates stand on these issues. You can even, as an individual, publicly endorse candidates. Most importantly, you have an absolute right to encourage parishioners to vote in accordance with their faith.

Biblical values must once again guide our political and cultural decisions and discourse, or tragically, this great American experiment – having survived longer than any governmental system in existence – may be at its twilight.

Still, I somehow doubt that the sun has set on this, the greatest nation on Earth. To borrow from a truly great president, Ronald Reagan, come Nov. 3, I suspect, instead, we'll once again awaken to a bright new future. We'll once again awaken to "morning in America."

Christians: Make it happen.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He is author of the book "The Right Hook – From the Ring to the Culture War" and serves as director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel. Send comments to Matt at jmattbarber@comcast.net / Facebook.com/jmattbarber / Twitter @jmattbarber (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)

“LIVABLE COMMUNITIES” is a SOCIALIST TRAP

2010-09-07T06:15:00.000-07:00

“LIVABLE COMMUNITIES” is a SOCIALIST TRAP!
Another power grab by the dirtbags in Washington.
By Tom DeWeese
Senator Christopher Dodd has introduced a bill to enforce UN Agenda 21 policy on your community. It’s called the “Livable Communities Act” (S.1619). It will destroy your community. Here’s why:
S. 1619 “Livable Communities” act is on a fast track to passage!
S.1619 is a blueprint for the transformation of our society into total federal control.

S.1619 will enforce federal Sustainable Development zoning and control of local communities.

S.1619 will create a massive new “development” bureaucracy --
(development Czar?)

S.1619 will drive up the cost of energy to heat and cool your home.

S.1619 will drive up the cost of gasoline as a way to get you out of your car.

S.1619 will force you to spend thousands on your home in order to comply.

S.1619 is NOT Voluntary – it will set up $4 billion in grants (TAX MONEY WE DON’T HAVE) that will force your community to comply.

Here are the facts:
 Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) has authored a bill S.1619 titled the “Livable Communities Act.” It is one of the most dangerous bills to ever threaten our liberty. Worse even than the Obamacare scheme.
 S.1619 creates a new permanent federal office: The Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities" for the enforcement of this bill the "Development Czar" if you will.

Sen. Dodd is lying when he says S.1619 is purely voluntary. The $4 billion in grants will be used by radical green groups (who helped write it) to force your city council to comply. If our city says no to the pressure to take the grant money – the radical greens will tell your citizens that their city officials are losing them millions of dollars that is owed to the community. Then, when the council caves into the pressure and takes the money, it will force compliance. THAT IS NOT VOLUNTARY – IT IS BLACKMAIL.

Senator Dodd will tell you that the bill is simply about uniformity to control development to save energy and to preserve rural areas. That is not true. After 15 years of fighting Sustainable policy I can assure you it is about control. Sustainablist policy focuses on three things: land use, redistribution of wealth, and population control.

S.1619 sets up a system for federally mandated housing uniformity, forcing homeowners to put on new roofs and windows, new “energy efficient’ appliances, etc. (Which could cost each homeowner upwards of $35,000.00)   

- S.1619 will establish top down control that turns our communities into little soviets, driven by non-elected boards, councils and regional governments.  
- As it reduces the amount of land available for homes (smart growth) S.1619 will have to lead to the establishment of federally mandated family planning for population control.
- And of course: it will raise taxes.

The nation is on the verge of bankruptcy from massive federal spending. This is certainly not the time to create new bureaucracies and spending boondoggles – even if Sustainable Development was an honest concern over environmental protection – WHICH IT IS NOT!. Sustainable Development is a blue print for top-down control of our communities, using enforcement by non-elected boards, councils and regional government to transform our local control into a little soviet run by untouchable bureaucrats.   

S.1619 is the first federal Sustainable Development law to enforce the UN’s Agenda 21. It must be stopped now – or every single community in America will be forced to comply with UN policy.  

S.1619 has already been passed out of the Senate Banking Committee and is headed for a floor vote.

Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots Part 1- The Beginning

2010-08-24T19:09:00.001-07:00

Bring America Back To Her Religious Roots
Part 1- The Beginning

The religious roots of our nation go very deep. Over the last 50-75 years we have lost a tremendous amount of truth of how religion governed not only the daily lives of our founding Fathers but how it was always deeply involved in the politics of this nation.
In Hitler’s Mein Kompf, he states that the bigger the lie and the more often that it is told the easier it is to get the masses to believe it. In the 30’s and 40’s he did just that and the result was a world war that cost the lives of over 60 million people.
In 1947 our Supreme Court ruled that the 1st Amendment had erected a wall of separation between the church and state and it had to remain impregnable. Even though there was no evidence of this in any court ruling for over 170 years, not even in the first Supreme Court was the church/state position challenged, yet somehow, the Supreme Court of 1947 decided that our Founding Fathers were uniformed as to the meaning of the 1st Amendment. The 1947 Supreme Court for the first time used ONLY the phrase “separation of church and state” instead of the whole context of that sentence which is not found in any of our founding documents, but in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. A letter was written to then President Jefferson because they had a concern that the US might try to establish a state church as had been done in England. The state ran the church and taxed the people to support the church. When you read the entire letter that Jefferson wrote you will find that he does use the statement “separation of church and state” but it is easily understood that what he is talking about is keeping the government out of the affairs of the church, not keeping the church completely out of the government. The Supreme Court decision of 1947 by liberal judges put on the Supreme Court by FDR, completely redefined the 1st Amendment. In that day 97% of the people of this nation declared an allegiance to God and in a nation where the majority rules, the 3% of our nation that did not believe in God ruled over the 97%.
In the early 1950’s one of the Supreme Court justices warned that we had better STOP using the phrase “separation of church and state” in the context that it was being used or people would begin believing that it was part of our Constitution. Most of the people I talk to today about the so-called “separation of church and state” do believe that it is part of our Constitution. The bigger the lie and the more you tell it makes it easier for the masses to believe it.
Preachers today don’t believe that the church is supposed to be involved in the political arena. Because the church does not address this part of American life we have politicians that won’t protect our borders, we have politicians that believe that it is a woman’s right to destroy her unborn child and we have politicians that refuse to support our troops fighting the war on terror. The Bible teaches us that however the church goes, the nation goes. Preachers today don’t have a problem with how the government has taken our right to be involved in the politics of this nation away from us. Without the churches influence our politicians have begun to take this nation down a path of destruction. And because pastors are afraid of losing their 501 (c) 3 rating, they won’t stand up for their rights.
I have tried to help pastors educate their people as to what they should be doing as far as their involvement even with political issues, and the typical response is, “We don’t do anything political”. I invited 200 pastors to a meeting concerning this and one pastor show up! Some pastors won’t even take a side on abortions and same-sex marriages for fear of losing members or their coveted 501 (c) 3. They claim that it is a political issue. It has become a political issue but more importantly it is a moral issue that the church should be addressing. Half of the people sitting in the pews are living together without the benefit of marriage but the church won’t preach against it for fear of offending someone. One pastor I talked to felt comfortable with the present lack of involvement of the church in the political arena. I used to feel the same way until one day the Holy Spirit asked me, ‘What if I’m not comfortable with the lack of involvement of the church in the political arena?” That is the question that pastors must ask themselves. Is God happy that the church is absent from the political arena and from the government?
There was a point in time in this nation when you couldn’t get elected UNLESS you confessed Jesus as Lord and had a record of attending church regularly. Religion was very important during the days of our Founding Fathers. One man was fined $500 for using the Name of the Lord in vain. That was over a year’s wages. Today you hear people inside the church using language that reminds you of a drunken sailor. I have even heard the son of a pastor who could cuss better than some on the streets. Just a short while ago a man in a public meeting cursed and was arrested and jailed. When he got before a judge the judge told the police that they had violated his right of free speech. What kind of place have we come to in the church and in our nation?
Today’s churches preach a lukewarm message not wanting to offend anyone. Any time you teach the truth somebody is going to be offended. Lukewarm messages have never built a strong church. Revelation 3:16 “So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.”
Many of the preachers that I talk to don’t believe that the church is supposed to be involved in the political arena. But in the Bible God ALWAYS had a man or woman of God close to the king, ALWAYS! Saul, Israel’s first king had Samuel the prophet. Every king, whether they were godly or not, had a man of God to influence them. Even our presidents have had godly men to influence them. One man, Billy Graham, has influenced and prayed with every president since Harry Truman. Eleven presidents were counseled and prayed with by him. Every president we have had has had a man of God to advise him and pray for him. Our presidents have not always taken the advice of these godly men just as the kings in the Old Testament didn’t always take heed to the advice of the prophets. We have seen some presidents ignore the godly principles of our Founding Fathers and take our nation down a path that leads away from the things of God. One such president was Woodrow Wilson. He was a racist and a progressive which beliefs are equal to Marxism. Then we had FDR. He set this nation on the road to socialism and there are many today in that same party that are hell bent to get us there. They are supporting the forcing of religious organizations to hire homosexuals. They passed hate crimes legislation that would make preaching the gospel concerning the Biblical view of homosexuality against the law. They have supported over the years the removal of religion from the public view including the Ten Commandment displays, pictures of Jesus and the removal of prayer from government meetings.
The church has to stand up for its rights or we will lose all of our rights. Many pastors say that we have to abide by the laws. But when the laws of man violate the laws of God Christians, especially preachers of the gospel, are mandated to obey God! When John and Peter were brought before the Sanhedrin and told to no longer speak in the Name of Jesus, Peter refused to follow that order: Acts 4:18 “And they called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.
(19) But Peter and John answered and said unto them, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye”.
(20) For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”
Up until 1954 the church could talk about political candidates from the pulpit and whether they were godly or ungodly. We could talk about political parties and whether they stood for godly things or ungodly things. In the early fifties Lyndon Johnson won election to the senate by a total of 87 votes. He had a lot of political connections and was able to stop every attempt at a recount. This information was leaked to a 501 (c) 3 that began to inform the public about a possible rigged election. When this information was released by non-profits Johnson had an addendum attached to an IRS bill that barred any 501 (c) 3 from supporting or opposing a political candidate or a political party. Johnson was able to silence his opposition. The church had been silenced.
© Pastor Roger Anghis

Communist Scum In Congress

2010-08-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

American Socialists Release Names of 70 Congressional Democrats in Their Ranks
by Jim Hoft

The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus.
This admission was recently posted on Scribd.com:

American Socialist Voter–
Q: How many members of the U.S. Congress are also members of the DSA?
A: Seventy

Q: How many of the DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee?
A: Eleven: John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez,
Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half, are now members of the DSA].

Q: Who are these members of 111th Congress?
A: See the listing below

Co-Chairs
Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-06)

Vice Chairs
Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)
Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)

Senate Members
Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)

House Members
Hon. Neil Abercrombie (HI-01)
Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)
Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Hon. Madeleine Bordallo (GU-AL)
Hon. Robert Brady (PA-01)
Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-03)
Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-08)
Hon. André Carson (IN-07)
Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-01)
Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-09)
Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-07)
Hon. Danny Davis (IL-07)
Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-04)
Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)
Rep. Donna F. Edwards (MD-04)
Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)
Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)
Hon. Barney Frank (MA-04)
Hon. Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11)
Hon. Alan Grayson (FL-08)
Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
Hon. John Hall (NY-19)
Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)
Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-04)
Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-09)
Hon. John Lewis (GA-05)
Hon. David Loebsack (IA-02)
Hon. Ben R. Lujan (NM-3)
Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Hon. Ed Markey (MA-07)
Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-07)
Hon. James McGovern (MA-03)
Hon. George Miller (CA-07)
Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-04)
Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
Hon. John Olver (MA-01)
Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-04)
Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Hon. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Hon. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-01)
Hon. Linda Sánchez (CA-47)
Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Hon. José Serrano (NY-16)
Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)
Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Hon. John Tierney (MA-06)
Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19)

Obama's Land Grab

2010-08-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

How Obama Is Locking Up Our Land
By Michelle Malkin

Have you heard of the "Great Outdoors Initiative"? Chances are, you haven't. But across the country, White House officials have been meeting quietly with environmental groups to map out government plans for acquiring untold millions of acres of both public and private land. It's another stealthy power grab through executive order that promises to radically transform the American way of life.

In April, President Obama issued a memorandum outlining his "21st century strategy for America's great outdoors." It was addressed to the Interior Secretary, the Agriculture Secretary, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the chair of the Council on Environmental Quality. The memo calls on the officials to conduct "listening and learning sessions" with the public to "identify the places that mean the most to Americans, and leverage the support of the Federal Government" to "protect" outdoor spaces. Eighteen of 25 planned sessions have already been held. But there's much more to the agenda than simply "reconnecting Americans to nature."

The federal government, as the memo boasted, is the nation's "largest land manager." It already owns roughly one of every three acres in the United States. This is apparently not enough. At a "listening session" in New Hampshire last week, government bureaucrats trained their sights on millions of private forest land throughout the New England region. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack crusaded for "the need for additional attention to the Land and Water Conservation Fund -- and the need to promptly support full funding of that fund."

Property owners have every reason to be worried. The Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) is a pet project of green radicals, who want the decades-old government slush fund for buying up private lands to be freed from congressional appropriations oversight. It's paid for primarily with receipts from the government's offshore oil and gas leases. Both Senate and House Democrats have included $900 million in full LWCF funding, not subject to congressional approval, in their energy/BP oil spill legislative packages. The Democrats have also included a provision in these packages that would require the federal government to take over energy permitting in state waters, which provoked an outcry from Texas state officials, who sent a letter of protest to Capitol Hill last month:

"In light of federal failures, it is incomprehensible that the United States Congress is entertaining proposals that expand federal authority over oil and gas drilling in state water and lands long regulated by states... Given the track record, putting the federal government in charge of energy production on state land and waters not only breaks years of successful precedent and threatens the 10th Amendment to the United Sates Constitution, but it also undermines common sense and threatens the environmental and economy security of our state's citizens."

This power grab, masquerading as a feel-good, all-American recreation program, comes on top of a separate, property-usurping initiative exposed by GOP Rep. Robert Bishop and Sen. Jim DeMint earlier this spring. According to an internal, 21-page Obama administration memo, 17 energy-rich areas in 11 states have been targeted as potential federal "monuments." The lives of coyotes, deer and prairie dogs would be elevated above states' needs to generate jobs, tourism business and energy solutions.

Take my home state of Colorado. The Obama administration is considering locking up some 380,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land and private land in Colorado under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The Vermillion Basin and the Alpine Triangle would be shut off to mining, hunting, grazing, oil and gas development and recreational activities. Alan Foutz, president of the Colorado Farm Bureau, blasted the administration's meddling: "Deer and elk populations are thriving, and we in Colorado don't need help from the federal government in order to manage them effectively."

Indeed, the feds have enough trouble as it is managing the vast amount of land they already control. As the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Limited Government group, which defends private property rights, points out: "The (National Park Service) claims it would need about $9.5 billion just to clear its backlog of the necessary improvements and repairs. At a time when our existing national parks are suffering, it doesn't make sense for the federal government to grab new lands."

The bureaucrats behind Obama's "Great Outdoors Initiative" plan on wrapping up their public comment solicitation by November 15. The initiative's taxpayer-funded website has been dominated by left-wing environmental activists proposing human population reduction, private property confiscation, and gun bans, hunting bans and vehicle bans in national parks. It's time for private property owners to send their own loud, clear message to the land-hungry feds: Take a hike.

Mosques and the Islamization of America

2010-08-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

Mosques and the Islamization of America

By Amil Imani

Disguised as religion, Islam has penetrated democracies with the aim of replacing civility and liberty with the barbarism of 7th century Islamic theocracy and Sharia law. Islam’s multi-pronged attack aims to destroy all that liberty offers.

America, with a long tradition of protecting religious freedom, still clings to the “hands off” practice of leaving alone any doctrine or practice billed as religion. A thorny problem is in deciding what constitutes a religion and who is to make that call. We must keep in mind that to be a loyal and faithful Muslim, a Muslim must adhere to and perform many obligatory acts, as specified in the Quran by Allah and the Hadith/Sunna, during his entire life.

The mosque serves as a house where Muslim devotees gather together for salat (prayer) and worshiping Allah and his messenger, the prophet Muhammad. Aside from worshiping Allah, a mosque is used for a variety of reasons. These meeting places are perfect warehouses of not only indoctrination, but future terrorists, who are made to read and understand the principles of Jihad, martyrdom and Dar ul Harb (“land of war”—any place not Islamacized.) Mosques cost money, and the money for these warehouses of intolerance is coming straight from Saudi Arabia, the number one terrorist state in the world.

These mosques are being infused with an activist strain of Islam, Wahhabism. If you have to ask where the Saudi’s are getting their money, you are not paying attention...it's coming from you. Not to mention, the current U.S. administration in its continuous war against the American people, is doing everything it can to accommodate the “Cordoba Initiative” project at taxpayers’ expense “that is spearheading plans to build a $100 million Islamic center at Ground Zero, the site where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by jihadists on 9/11.” The recent CNN Poll shows 68% of American voters oppose the Ground Zero Mosque.

Those useful idiot non-Muslims who support the building of the mosque near the 9/11 site or anywhere else by invoking the ideal of religious freedom, are empowering a creed that is devoted to stamping out freedom of religion or any other form of freedom.

In this relentless campaign, the Islamists have a vast cadre of “experts,” “talking heads,” and for-purchase politicians who keep endlessly broadcasting the false mantra that Islam is a religion of peace. This latter bunch is criminally complicit in making the populace complacent and furthering the work of the Islamists.

When mosques are built, imams, mullahs or mosque elders tend to be sent to the U.S. with one clear mission: Make Islamic religion, laws, and life supreme within the United States, using any and all tactics necessary. Next, from within the safety of their local mosques, they begin to use their revolting practices, riotous youth, and wild sermonizing to force the genteel Americans to relocate to safer, less threatening neighborhoods and cities. Of course, not all Americans will move or can afford to do so. And to take control of a town, Muslims will not need to evict everyone. They probably need about 25% in order to make life very unpleasant for those who do not go along with their demands.

They will elect Muslims to all positions of local influence, who will create and enforce policy according to the Sharia law. Once they have control over a town, they will begin to establish informal Sharia, and there’s nothing the government can (or will want to) do about it.

Sharia is the brutal means by which Islam controls its populations by force, intimidation, and punishments for offenses to Allah. Already in many European countries, national governments have, out of fear, given Islamic fascists the right to establish their own shadow governments within the borders of countries like Sweden and England, where they can control their own populations without accountability. Proposals for Sharia are being taken seriously by many western countries.

“According to early Muslim historians, towns that surrendered without resistance and made treaties with the Muslims gave the Muslims permission to take their churches and synagogues. One of the earliest examples of these kinds of conversions was in Damascus, Syria, where in 705 AD Umayyad caliph Al-Walid I bought the church of St. John from the Christians and had it rebuilt as a mosque in exchange for building a number of new churches for the Christians in Damascus. Overall, Abd al-Malik (Al-Waleed's father) is said to have transformed 10 churches in Damascus into mosques.”

“The process of turning churches into mosques was especially intensive in the villages where most of the inhabitants converted to Islam. The Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun turned many churches into mosques. Ottoman Turks converted nearly all churches, monasteries, and chapels in Constantinople, including the famous Hagia Sophia, immediately after capturing the city in 1453, into mosques. In some instances mosques have been established on the places of Jewish or Christian sanctuaries associated with Biblical personalities who were also recognized by Islam.”

Again, Muslims first make their mark by establishing mosques in as many towns and cities as they can. These mosques range from the ostentatious, such as the one in Washington D.C., to the academically-cloaked university Islamic centers, to the innocuous storefront types and even prison chapels. One and all have the same aims: Hold the faithful in line, recruit as many new adherents by any and all means, and indoctrinate one and all in the imperative of Islamic conquest.

It is in these Islamic places that the impressionable young and the fanatical adults are drilled with the duty to carry out Jihad against the Dar ul Harb (“land of war”—anyplace not completely under the rule of Islam.)

Operating this vast network of Islamism requires significant financing. Saudi Arabia has spent over $80 billion for these operations since 1970. The other Persian Gulf States, with their treasuries flush with oil money, have done and continue to do their share of financing.

Not to be out-done by the virulent Wahhabism of the Saudis and their co-sectist Sunnis, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been bank-rolling its own array of clientele in the Middle East, much of Africa, and as far away as Southeast Asia and Latin America in a push for Shiism. The-non-Muslim world is literally caught in a pincer of the two rabid Islamic forces.

There are those who still delude themselves by preferring to believe that Islam has not made as many inroads into the United States as it has in other parts of the world, such as Europe. Facts prove otherwise.

According to a National Portrait, a survey released in April 2001, there were at least 1,209 mosques in the US. According to the latest report, this number has sky-rocketed to as many as 6,000 mosques in 2008.

The official Saudi website reported a donation of $6 million, also in 1995, for a mosque in Cincinnati, Ohio. The website further stated, in 2000, "In the United States, the Kingdom has contributed to the establishment of the Islamic Center in Washington DC; the Omer Bin Al-Khattab Mosque in western Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Islamic Center, and the Fresno Mosque in California; the Islamic Center in Denver, Colorado; the Islamic center in Harrison, New York City; and the Islamic Center in Northern Virginia."

This entire guesstimate aside, a recent report from the FBI estimates that of the 2000 mosques in the United States, 10% preach Jihad. Welcome to the religion of peace as it is invading the land of the free to make it the land of submission. This is not some Islam-hating crackpot group reporting. It is the FBI, an agency known for its bending backward to be politically correct in tune with the rest of the administration.

In addition to the mosques already built in the land of the free, Islam is advanced by a large cadre of auxiliaries. Dr. Paul Williams (former FBI consultant, best-selling author and investigative journalist) reports that many Muslim businesses around the country conduct their regular businesses during the day and in the evening they turn their stores into Islamic gathering places. There are several thousands of these make-shift “Takeyehs”.

If only the masses of Muslims arise and carry out the orders of Allah, then we would have the promised paradise of Islam on earth as exemplified by such rules as that of the Taliban, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, Somalia, and of course the Shiite nirvana of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In these model Islamic societies, freedom of expression, worship, and assembly are taken away. Women are treated as chattel. Young girls are subjected to barbaric genital mutilation to make them sex slaves and birth channels without the ability to enjoy intercourse. Minors are executed, adulterers are stoned to death, thieves have their limbs amputated, and much much more. Isn’t that everyone’s idea of paradise?

What a travesty and how ironic indeed to have as many mosques as we already have in the U.S., yet, we intend to help the Islamists, building more training camps for future suicide bombers and endangering the safety of the American people and generations to come. With the average citizen, and not the devious and for-purchase-politicians, rests the solemn obligation to act, and act now, to compel our government to stem the tide of Islamism before it is too late.

It is tragic indeed that while our courageous service members are losing life and limbs in far and away places fighting Islamism, useful idiots and servile politicians of the highest rank at home bend backward to accommodate, even promote, Islamism.

There is a glimmer of hope that the American people are finally waking up to the deceit and the menace of the creed called Islam. Their opposition to the building of the mosque shows that the creeping Islamization of America is indeed something to stand against and prevent before it is too late.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Amil Imani is an Iranian-born American citizen and a pro-democracy activist residing in the United States of America. Imani is a columnist, literary translator, novelist and essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com. Amil Imani is the author of Obama Meets Ahmadinejad.

Tea Party Defined

2010-07-22T08:49:00.001-07:00

Tea Parties – Same Song, Second Verse
By David Barton

America's first Tea Party in 1773 was not an act of wanton lawlessness but rather a deliberate protest against heavy-handed government and excessive taxation. Its leaders took great care to ensure that nothing but tea was thrown overboard – no other items were damaged. The "Indians" even swept the decks of the ships before they left.

Tea Parties occurred not only in Boston but also in numerous other locales. And those who participated were just ordinary citizens expressing their frustration over a government that had refused to listen to them for almost a decade. Their reasonable requests had fallen on deaf ears. Of course, the out-of-touch British claimed that the Tea Parties were lawless and violent, but such was not the case.

Interestingly, in many ways, today's Tea Parties parallel those of long ago. But rather than protesting a tax on tea, today they are protesting dozens of taxes represented by what they call the Porkulus/Generational Theft Act of 2009 (officially called the "American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act"). For Tea Party members (and for most Americans), that act and the way it was passed epitomizes a broken system whose arrogant leaders often scorn the concerns of the citizens they purport to represent.

Tea Party folks agree with the economic logic of our Founders.

* "To contract new debts is not the way to pay off old ones." "Avoid occasions of expense...and avoid likewise the accumulation of debt not only by shunning occasions of expense but by vigorous exertions...to discharge the debts." George Washington
* "Nothing can more [affect] national credit and prosperity than a constant and systematic attention to...extinguish the present debt and to avoid as much as possible the incurring of any new debt." Alexander Hamilton
* "The maxim of buying nothing but what we have money in our pockets to pay for lays the broadest foundation for happiness." "The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." Thomas Jefferson

These are not radical positions – nor are the others set forth in the Tea Party platform – that Congress should: (1) provide the constitutional basis for the bills it passes; (2) reduce intrusive government regulations; (3) balance the budget; (4) limit the increase of government spending to the rate of population growth; (5) and eliminate earmarks unless approved by 2/3rds of Congress. Are these positions dangerous or extreme? Certainly not. In fact, polling shows that while Americans differ on the way they view the Tea Parties, they support these Tea Party goals by a margin of two-to-one.

Citizens are angry about the current direction of government. As John Zubly, a member of the Continental Congress in 1775, reminded the British: "My Lord, the Americans are no idiots, and they appear determined not to be slaves. Oppression will make wise men mad." But does that anger automatically equate to violence? Of course not. It does equate to action, however; but instead of throwing tea overboard, modern Tea Parties are throwing out-of-touch politicians from both parties overboard.

The Tea Parties represent much of what is right in America – citizens reacquainting themselves with the Constitution and holding their elected officials accountable to its standards. Two centuries ago, Daniel Webster could have been talking to today's Tea Party rallies when he said: "Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution!"

UN Global Gun Grab

2010-07-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

Understanding the United Nations and US Gun Control

by Jennifer Kendall

On Monday, June 28, 2010, The Supreme Court reaffirmed the Second Amendment during the trial of McDonald vs. Chicago. The 5-4 ruling confirmed that neither a state nor city, acting under a grant of authority from the state, could deny a person the right to possess a firearm. This was seen as a victory for gun rights activists, but with the United Nations Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) treaty looming in the near future, this fight is far from over.

The U.N. program of action concerning SALW includes restrictions on the manufacturing, storing, transferring and possession of firearms and ammunition if it is not adequately marked. It ensures that once SALW’s program is enacted all licensed manufacturers must apply a unique marking identifying the country of manufacture, manufacturer and serial number of the weapon. Weapons that lack this unique marking that are confiscated, seized or collected will be destroyed. (No compensation for confiscated guns) These restrictions will be enforced on a national, regional and global scale.

Once the treaty is signed, if you happen to own a gun that was manufactured without this “unique marking,” you are in violation of the law and must turn over your weapon to authorities. This includes guns that were obtained legally. With gun laws in the U.S. that already place many restrictions on the sale of personal firearms, the adoption of this treaty would further infringe on the Second Amendment of the Constitution. When the founding fathers of the U.S wrote that, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” they made no mention of unique markings.

John Bolton, US Representative to the UN under the George W. Bush administration, says, “The [Obama] administration is trying to act as though this is really just a treaty about international arms trade between nation states, but there’s no doubt--as was the case back over a decade ago--that the real agenda here is domestic firearms control.”

The U.N.’s reasons for planning to draft stricter gun laws in the future are mostly related to stopping the illicit trade of small arms and light weapons. However, the President of the Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, Camilo Reyes Rodriguez of Colombia, in July 2001, stated his disappointment on the “inability to agree… on language recognizing the need to establish and maintain controls over private ownership of these deadly weapons and the need for preventing sales of such arms to non-State groups.” Rodriguez said that these steps were “two of the most important.”

The U.N. shows “overwhelming support” for such measures, according to Rodriguez. The U.N. claims these gun laws would help to lessen gun violence, but statistics foretell a different outcome. A survey by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in 2001 found that the top three states with the most gun ownership in America were Massachusetts, Connecticut and Kentucky (in descending order). Another study, by Statehealthfacts.org in 2002, ranked the states with the least gun related deaths per 100,000 people. Hawaii had the least gun-related deaths followed by Massachusetts and Connecticut. The District of Columbia had the most gun related deaths and conversely the least amount of guns owned.

Worldwide gun-related deaths also don’t show any support for more restrictive gun laws. The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems in 2002 found that South Africa, Columbia and Thailand topped the list of countries with the most murders by firearms per capita. Yet when 178 countries were ranked in descending order by which had the most civilian firearms per 100 people, South Africa came in 50th place, Columbia was 91st and Thailand was 39th.

You can’t argue that stricter gun control and fewer guns owned by citizens would diminish gun violence when looking at the facts. If a country were to confiscate its citizen’s guns by national law, it would leave guns in the hands of only the government and criminals. I’m not sure which group is more terrifying. When criminals are the only people who possess handguns, law-abiding citizens are powerless to defend themselves. This makes non-criminals easy targets and gun crimes rise respectively.

This was proven to all countries when England enacted a ban on ownership of handguns in 1997. Two years after the gun ban had gone into effect the Countryside Alliance's Campaign for Shooting found that the use of handguns in crime had risen 40%.

David Bredin, the director of the campaign, said, “It is crystal clear from the research that the existing gun laws do not lead to crime reduction and a safer place.” The reason stricter gun control did not mean less violence, the campaign concluded, was “existing laws are targeting legitimate users of firearms rather than criminals.”

If gun control does not coincide with a safer society, then the U.N. has no ground for declaring controls on private ownership would help solve the illegal trafficking of firearms. In fact, if prohibition taught us anything, it is that restrictions do not decrease demand, but only cut supply. When supply drops and demand stays the same, prices rise and incentives lead to added underground crime rings. The U.N. should drop the gun laws, pick up some history books and take a few notes. Maybe then they could focus on something useful like stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

Gay Takeover Of Our Schools

2010-07-17T09:12:00.000-07:00

Napoleon and the Gay Samoans
By Sandy Rios
”If education were a product we would be suing,” wrote the mother of a 2010 high school graduate. Her e-mail was so eloquent, it warrants no editing:
“Today I asked my son what country Napoleon was from. He said Rome.
He just finished 12 years of public schooling in what has been called one of the top high schools in the nation. Although he’s not a bookworm, he is a decent student. He has better than a B average.
He doesn’t know which country Napoleon was from – let alone what he did. I don’t think he was sick that day.
On the other hand, I’m going through his Social Study papers and see that he did learn that homosexual men in Samoa may perpetuate gay genes by being good uncles…
Twelve years. If education were a product we would be suing.”
But the suit would likely be lost. Reason left the classroom and the courts long ago. And homosexual apologetics have been promoted so aggressively through the National Education Association, that faculty or staff dare not express an objection. Public school hallways display rainbows and trumpet Gay Pride and Days of Silence, while renderings of the Ten commandments are forbidden. In Deerfield, Illinois, a required Freshman orientation class features gay, straight, lesbian and bi-sexual students telling 14 year olds the ins and outs of homosexual sex with their young audience strictly forbidden to tell their parents. In schools across the nation homosexuality is taught in every discipline from the use of math word problems related to same gender sex to the science of non-existent gay genes to history claiming Abraham Lincoln had a love affair with his law partner, Billy Herndon.
In Alabama an entire prom was cancelled because a lesbian student was not allowed to bring her girlfriend. And in that rare case where homosexual students aren’t allowed to bring their partners to proms, local houses of worship are hosting gay proms in church basements.
Massachusetts, Vermont and California have blazed the trail on these matters…providing co-ed bathrooms in schools and allowing students even in some grade schools to alter their gender if so led.
After the legalization of Civil Unions in Vermont, Outright Vermont, a homosexual advocacy organization hosted a weekend seminar funded by tax dollars that taught middle schoolers about a violent homosexual act called “fisting” and girls how to remove healthy breasts if they preferred to be boys…complete with photos and live demonstrations.
In California, a group called “Gender Spectrum” recently sent out a flyer to announce a conference to students 13-18:
Come join other transgender, gender bending, gender noncomforming teens, children and families for three days of celebrating individuality, making new friends and having fun. Meet other trans and gender nonconforming teens and adults, hang out, and explore different topics on gender: school, making friends, dating.
Montana has joined the gay chorus…with a newly proposed sex curriculum to begin in kindergarten so that little Montanans can know about all the ways to have sex with anyone in any combination. Then State Senator Barack Obama advocated the same in Illinois, but was defeated.
It IS that bad. And deny it all they want, parents are beginning to realize what the concerned mom above discovered in despair: Children aren’t learning how to read, spell or punctuate. They don’t know the nation’s history…its leaders or its constitution…nor anything about the God of their fathers, but they do know about homosexual sex.
And when they get to college, there will be no one to tell them otherwise. Consider the case of University of Illinois professor Ken Howell who was just fired after nine years of teaching “Introduction to Catholicism” for writing an e-mail to students explaining that Catholic Teaching on homosexuality derives itself from moral law. A student forwarded the e-mail to the head of the Religion Department and Howell was removed from the faculty for “violating university standards of inclusivity.” A Catholic fired for actually believing and teaching Catholic doctrine on homosexuality in a class on Catholicism.
So what are we to do? Get tough. Take a stand. Make the hard choices. Speak up and take your licks. The sexual anarchists are free to practice their anarchy, but they cannot have our kids. Any government that promotes or says they can and bars parents from their rightful influence must be opposed fiercely.
Fellow angry citizens: Let’s get busy. Let’s move our kids to private schools…private cooperatives…homeschool them. The public school must either clean up its act or risk losing its power. The radicalism in Providence, Massachusetts, for example has resulted in such a reduced student population, they are closing their high school doors. Good.
We send our children to school to learn the great disciplines of English, history, math, and science...presented factually and diligently. We don’t send them to be turned over to sexual activists willing to sacrifice their young minds to achieve their own narrow agenda.
Away with the gay Samoans and up with Napoleon!

Gun Confiscation Training

2010-07-08T06:35:00.000-07:00

Polish Troops Train To Take On American ‘Terrorists’
By Paul Joseph Watson

Law enforcement and military officials were keen to play down the presence of Polish troops during the recent Operation Vigilant Guard exercises in Chicago, but claims that the foreign personnel were there merely as “observers” were proven incorrect after they were filmed participating in drills which revolved around terrorism and mass casualty disasters.

Infowars reporters Rob Dew and Jason Douglass traveled to Chicago to document the increasing integration of foreign troops with American military and civilian authorities.

At a National Guard exercise being held in Toyota Park, a soccer stadium, Colonel Johnny Miller, the head of the drill, told Dew and Douglass, “Our partner country with Illinois is Poland, so we’ll have Polish military folks here,” adding that Polish law enforcement agencies, Polish FBI, as well as Latvian forces, would also be in attendance.

Miller said that the Polish personnel would be there merely as observers to incorporate what they had witnessed into their own counter-terror and law enforcement programs, a claim later disproved when the troops were seen participating in the programs.

Moving on to Elk Grove Village for day 3 of the exercise, SFC Mark Ballard of the Illinois National Guard said that the Polish forces would be “integrating into some of the civil military units that are participating in this exercise” as part of Illinois’ partnership with the Republic of Poland, a relationship based around “integrative training” and blending military and civilian forces in the event of a national emergency, as well as making this process of integration with foreign troops more “visible”.

The claim that the Polish forces were merely present at the exercises to observe was again proven false during a Homeland Security drill in Bensenville that revolved around a meth lab takedown.

Polish Major Lesniak said that the exercise represented “the next step” in the Polish military’s cooperation with the Illinois National Guard, adding that American forces in Poland were not engaged in similar exercises, thus confirming that these drills are solely aimed at preparing Americans to accept the sight of foreign troops conducting law enforcement duties.

On day 4, volunteers from Boy Scouts of America were brought in to take part in the exercises. This is telling given last year’s announcement of how Homeland Security is training boy scouts to take on and disarm “disgruntled veterans” who are described as “terrorists”. This is when it became apparent that gun-toting Polish BOA forces were directly participating in the exercises, something that the military officials had earlier mischaracterized.

During a subsequent exercise in the Chicago subway, Jose Santiago, Executive Director of Emergency Management and Communications, was keen to stress that the Polish forces were “observers” only, even after the Infowars film crew had recorded them directly participating in previous disaster exercises.

Operation Vigilant Guard reveals the on-going effort to not only destroy Posse Comitatus — once upon a time designed to prevent the military from working with state and local law enforcement — but the globalist effort to incorporate foreign “partners” into any future effort to impose martial law and gun confiscation in response not only to hurricanes but a contrived terrorist event.

“Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful,” the high level globalist minion Henry Kissinger purportedly said in an address to the Bilderbergers at Evian, France, on May 21, 1991.
Is it possible after the next manufactured terror event they will also be grateful for the armed presence of soldiers from Poland and Latvia?

Alternatively, simply login via the home page at http://prisonplanet.tv and then go to the MEDIA tab and then select VIDEO REPORTS to watch the video.

Expired members – did you know you can quickly and simply renew your old subscription by visiting http://prisonplanet.tv/component/user/login.html – simply login with your old account details and then click on “My Membership Info” at the top of the screen to add a new subscription to your existing account! You can also recover your old user name and password via the link if you have forgotten it.
Gun Confiscation

Tyranny at Home

2010-07-06T08:03:00.001-07:00

Drones Over America: Tyranny at Home
By John W. Whitehead

"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence against foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home."—James Madison

The U.S. government has a history of commandeering military technology for use against Americans. We saw this happen with tear gas, tasers and sound cannons, all of which were first used on the battlefield before being deployed against civilians at home. Now the drones—pilotless, remote controlled aircraft that have been used in Iraq and Afghanistan—are coming home to roost.

Drones, a $2 billion cornerstone of the Obama administration's war efforts, have increasingly found favor with both military and law enforcement officials. "The more we have used them," stated Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "the more we have identified their potential in a broader and broader set of circumstances."

Now the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is facing mounting pressure from state governments and localities to issue flying rights for a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to carry out civilian and law-enforcement activities. As the Associated Press reports, "Tornado researchers want to send them into storms to gather data. Energy companies want to use them to monitor pipelines. State police hope to send them up to capture images of speeding cars' license plates. Local police envision using them to track fleeing suspects." Unfortunately, to a drone, everyone is a suspect because drone technology makes no distinction between the law-abiding individual and the suspect. Everyone gets monitored, photographed, tracked and targeted.

The FAA, citing concerns over the need to regulate air traffic and establish anti-collision rules for the aircrafts and their operators, has thus far been reluctant to grant broad approval for the use of UAVs in American airspace. However, unbeknownst to most Americans, remote controlled aircraft have been employed domestically for years now. They were first used as a national security tool for patrolling America's borders and then as a means of monitoring citizens. For example, back in 2006, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was testing out a SkySeer drone for use in police work. With a 6.5-foot wingspan, the lightweight SkySeer can be folded up like a kite and stored in a shoulder pack. At 250 feet, it can barely be seen with the naked eye.

As another news story that same year reported, "one North Carolina county is using a UAV equipped with low-light and infrared cameras to keep watch on its citizens. The aircraft has been dispatched to monitor gatherings of motorcycle riders at the Gaston County fairgrounds from just a few hundred feet in the air—close enough to identify faces—and many more uses, such as the aerial detection of marijuana fields, are planned." In 2007, insect-like drones were seen hovering over political rallies in New York and Washington, seemingly spying on protesters. An eyewitness reported that the drones "looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters."

Drone technology has advanced dramatically in the ensuing years, with surveillance drones getting smaller, more sophisticated and more lethal with each evolution. Modeling their prototype for a single-winged rotorcraft on the maple seed's unique design, aerospace engineering students at the University of Maryland have created the world's smallest controllable surveillance drones, capable of hovering to record conversations or movements of citizens.

Thus far, the domestic use of drones has been primarily for surveillance purposes and, as far as we know, has been limited in scope. Eventually, however, police departments and intelligence agencies will make drones a routine part of their operations. However, you can be sure they won't limit themselves to just surveillance.

Police today use whatever tools are at their disposal in order to anticipate and forestall crime. This means employing technology to attain total control. Technology, which functions without discrimination because it exists without discrimination, tends to be applied everywhere it can be applied. Thus, the logical aim of technologically equipped police who operate as technicians must be control, containment and eventually restriction of freedom.

In this way, under the guise of keeping Americans safe and controlled, airborne drones will have to be equipped with an assortment of lethal and nonlethal weapons in order to effectuate control of citizens on the ground. The arsenal of nonlethal weapons will likely include Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs), which are used to break up protests or riots by sending a piercing sound into crowds and can cause serious hearing damage; high-intensity strobe lights, which can cause dizziness, disorientation and loss of balance and make it virtually impossible to run away; and tasers, which administer a powerful electric shock.

Since June 2001, over 350 people, including women, children and elderly individuals, have died in the U.S. after being shocked with "non-lethal" tasers. "Imagine how incidents would skyrocket," notes Paul Joseph Watson for PrisonPlanet.com, "once the personal element of using a Taser is removed and they are strapped to marauding surveillance drones, eliminating any responsibility for deaths and injuries that occur."

"Also available to police," writes Watson, "will be a drone that can fire tear gas as well as rubber pellets to disperse anyone still living under the delusion that they were born in a democratic country." In fact, the French company Tecknisolar Seni has built a drone armed with a double-barreled 44 mm Flash-Ball gun. The one-kilo Flash-Ball resembles a large caliber handgun and fires so-called non-lethal rounds, including tear gas and rubber impact rounds to bring down a suspect. Despite being labeled a "non-lethal weapon," this, too, is not without its dangers. As David Hambling writes for Wired News, "Like other impact rounds, the Flash-Ball is meant to be aimed at the body—firing from a remote, flying platform is likely to increase the risk of head injury."

One thing is clear: while the idea of airborne drones policing America's streets may seem far-fetched, like something out of a sci-fi movie, it is no longer in the realm of the impossible. Now, it's just a matter of how soon you can expect them to be patrolling your own neighborhood. The crucial question, however, is whether Americans will be able to limit the government's use of such surveillance tools or whether we will be caught in an electronic nightmare from which there is no escape.

Remember the Price of Freedom

2010-06-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

What Price Freedom?
By John W. Whitehead

Let me tell you about 56 men who risked everything—their fortunes and their lives—to take a stand for truth. These men laid everything on the line, pledged it all—"our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor"—because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free. They believed that freedom is a spiritual concept in that the rights we possess are, in their words, given to us by the Creator. Let me emphasize: at the heart of these rights is a radical freedom—the freedom to speak, to dissent, to protest and to seek relief, if necessary, against an unjust government—that is, one that won't listen to the people.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives. Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated.

Their signatures, famously scribbled on a piece of parchment, expressed their unfettered willingness to speak out against the most powerful empire in the world. These 56 men were the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Some we remember for their later accomplishments—such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both of whom went on to serve as American presidents. But there were others—such as Lewis Morris, Carter Braxton, Thomas Nelson and Richard Stockton—who do not often get mentioned, who sought not glory but rather a cause. They knew that sacrifice was necessary to secure freedom, and they were willing to make the sacrifice.

Lewis Morris lost his entire estate. The British ravaged and destroyed it, sending his family fleeing in desperation with nowhere to go.

Carter Braxton's entire career and way of life were decimated. Losing his ships to the British Navy, his shipping company was forever lost and he was never able to revive it.

Thomas Nelson's price for liberty was to the tune of $2 million—and that was in 1776. He ran up the $2 million credit debt for the "Patriots' Cause." In the end, repaying the debt cost him his entire estate. He died bankrupt and was buried in an unmarked grave.

Richard Stockton paid dearly also. Once a prominent judge, he gave up his cherished seat on the bench to fight for liberty. For his decision, he was dragged from his bed and tortured by British soldiers.

All in all, of those 56 signers, 9 died during the Revolution, 5 were captured by British soldiers, 18 had their homes looted and burned by the Red Coats, 2 were wounded in battle and 2 lost their sons during the war. Remarkably, these men—who were community leaders, business owners, judges, lawyers and inventors—sacrificed their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor so that you and I could live freely in a nation where we have the right to stand up and speak out.

There are many more stories of heroic patriots throughout American history who have risked it all to preserve the freedoms we possess. Most of them have come from radically different walks of life—different upbringings, different educations, different ideas. But the one thing that unites them is their love of and commitment to freedom and their willingness to stand up and speak out, no matter the cost. Although many of them lost everything, they were willing to sacrifice in order to raise their voices in truth. They put freedom before their own interests. Because of their bravery in speaking truth to power and their commitment to unwavering principles, history has judged them to be extraordinary.

Thus, it is only right that we should still honor them every Fourth of July. Yet how do we do so? We go through the motions, spouting patriotic sentiments and putting on displays of national pomp and circumstance that at the end of the day mean nothing. Sadly, as a nation, we have become jaded and apathetic, content to celebrate our independence with cookouts and fireworks but little else.

America, we must remember, is a concept. We must earn our right to be American. What does that mean? First of all, it means learning the core principles of citizenship that are laid out in the Constitution. Any person in this country who cannot list from memory the rights enshrined in those 462 words that make up the Bill of Rights is not a true American. Unfortunately, this applies to the great majority of the populace. Second, it means taking a stand on those principles and fighting to keep the freedoms that are being stripped from us on a daily basis. This may well mean grabbing a picket sign and taking to the streets.

The bottom line is that we owe it to those who have put their lives on the line for our freedoms to make our citizenship count for something. We need to take responsibility for what's going on around us. And we need to stand up and support those who refuse to remain silent when they see an injustice and who, like those 56 brave men, dare to put it all on the line in order to speak truth to power.

Government Kisses Illegals Butts

2010-06-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

Club Fed for Illegal Aliens
by Michelle Malkin

Thanks to their international "human rights" advocates, Gitmo detainees receive art therapy, movie nights and video games at their U.S. taxpayer-funded camp in Cuba. Now, the left's bleeding heart lobby wants to provide similar taxpayer-sponsored perks to illegal alien detainees on American soil. Welcome to the open-borders Club Fed.

According to an internal Department of Homeland Security e-mail obtained by the Houston Chronicle, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency plans a radical overhaul of the immigration detention system. No, the reforms will not increase the nation's measly, chronically underfunded detention bed capacity -- fewer than 35,000 beds last fiscal year to cover an estimated illegal alien population of between 12 million and 20 million. The Obama ICE leadership is headed in the exact opposite direction.

Rush Limbaugh

ICE chief John Morton -- the same man who signaled last month that he may refuse to process illegal aliens sent to him by Arizona law enforcement officials -- has already eliminated 50 detention facilities. This despite a DHS inspector general report released last spring exposing the federal government's bipartisan failure to expand detention space capacity to end the dangerous game of illegal alien "catch and release."

Instead, among the p.c. makeover measures under consideration or about to be made by Obama's ICE agency in the next 30 days:

-- "Softening" the physical appearance of privately contracted detention facilities with "hanging plants."

- Giving illegal alien detainees e-mail access and free Internet-based phone service.

- Abandoning lockdowns, lights-out, visitor screening and detention uniform requirements.

- Serving fresh veggies and continental breakfast and providing Bingo sessions, arts and crafts classes, and, yes, movie nights.

Ensuring humane treatment of detainees is one thing. This, on the other hand, is beyond ridiculous. Detention centers should be clean, safe and temporary way stations for illegal immigrants on their way out the door. These proposals turn the immigration detention centers into permanent Dave & Buster's-style comfort zones for illegal aliens biding their time until the next amnesty. Dancing lessons? Game halls? This is an invitation for abuse -- and a recipe for exploitation by smugglers and drug cartels. Open-borders and civil liberties activists will end up endangering DHS/ICE workers -- and the rest of us -- under the guise of "immigrant human rights."

The left-wing campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union, change.org and illegal alien activists targeting our detention system began in earnest after 9/11. Under the Bush administration, hundreds of illegal aliens of Arab descent were detained and questioned as "material witnesses" in counterterrorism probes. The use of immigration laws in the war against Islamic jihadists became a rallying point for the open-borders propagandists.

The New York Times hysterically reported that most of these post-9/11 detainees were held for months without charges. In fact, 60 percent of the 762 immigrants detained after the 9/11 attacks were charged within 72 hours. And the Justice Department inspector general found that there were legitimate reasons for delay in the remaining cases, including logistical disruptions in New York City after 9/11, such as electrical outages, office shutdowns and mail service cancellation that slowed delivery of charging documents. Immigrant abuse charges were hurled recklessly by the likes of Al Gore, who slandered DHS's detention program during a paid appearance in Saudi Arabia -- despite the DOJ's failure to find any such patterns.

The truth got lost along the way. So did common sense. Allowing illegal alien terror suspects to roam free in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks would have been a dereliction of duty. And countless homeland security experts and DHS inspector general reports have repeatedly spotlighted lax enforcement in the detention safety net over the past decade.

Hundreds of thousands of "absconders" remain on the loose because of failure (or refusal) to detain them. The immigration lawyers' racket has lobbied for compassionate "alternatives" to detention that routinely result in deportation fugitives simply ditching the process and disappearing.

Their goal is not to improve detention. Their goal is to sabotage it -- all while law-breakers munch on croissants and joyfully shout "BINGO!"

Mob Rule From SEIU

2010-05-25T07:45:00.000-07:00

Obama's Brown Shirts

Does belonging to the service workers' union give you the right to invade private homes, terrorize children and smear anyone questioning such tactics? Apparently so, based on recent events in Maryland.

On May 16, Washington, D.C., police escorted 14 busloads full of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members at least part of the way to storm the Chevy Chase, Md., home of Bank of America's deputy legal counsel, Greg Baer.

Some 500 protesters affiliated with SEIU and their allies in the community organizing group National Political Action (NPA) trampled his lawn, blocked his doorway to his home and screamed "greed." Legally, it was burglary, trespassing and, possibly, assault.

But Maryland cops didn't enforce the law. And Baer had to brave the insult-hurling mob alone to rescue his 14-year old son who, home alone, had locked himself in the bathroom in fear.

But there was one thing these thugs didn't count on — a credible journalist next door who reported what happened.

Fortune Magazine's Nina Easton wrote about what happened and asked SEIU spokesman Stephen Lerner to explain.

His response was chilling: "People in powerful corporations seem to think they can insulate themselves from the damage they are doing," Lerner said, implying that physical intimidation was indeed the intent.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised. Aggressive, personalized protests have been a fact of life in the world of unions and community organizers influenced by the radical philosophy of Saul Alinsky.

But they're now growing in frequency as SEIU officials top the White House visitors' list and union influence grows.

It started in earnest last year, when SEIU thugs gave a "beat down" to a black trinket seller at a tea party protest — with no consequences.

It also was seen when the SEIU teamed up with its community-organizing ally Acorn to set up bus harassment tours of AIG executives' homes during last year's insurance bailout.

In recent weeks in New York and Washington, SEIU and NPA protestors invaded and shut down banks, frightening customers.

What's important here is that these mobs act with near impunity and lash out at critics like Easton. What Stern calls "the persuasion of power" is identical to the violent means of maintaining political order in Cuba and Venezuela.

It's going full blast in the U.S. now as the party in power loses popularity. That's a bad sign that democracy itself is under attack.

All Carbon Cemeteries are already Full

2010-05-21T06:04:00.000-07:00

“Carbon Capture & Burial – all Carbon Cemeteries are already Full.”

Link: http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/carbon-capture.pdf

The Carbon Sense Coalition today called for an end to the colossal waste of community resources and energy on research and development for “Carbon Capture and Burial”.

The Chairman of “Carbon Sense”, Mr Viv Forbes, said that billions of dollars are being wasted on sacrifices to the global warming god - endless bureaucracy, politicised research, piddling wind and solar schemes, roof insulation disasters, ethanol subsidies, carbon credit forests, carbon trading frauds and huge compliance costs.

“But perhaps the biggest waste of all is the futile quest to capture carbon dioxide from power stations, separate it, compress it, pump it long distances and force it down specially drilled bore holes, hoping it will never escape.

“The effect of CO2 on global temperature, if it exists, is so small that no one has been able to demonstrate or measure it. The touted effect exists solely in computer models whose forecasts to date have all failed. Therefore there is ZERO proven benefit for mankind in trying to capture harmless CO2 in order to bury it in carbon cemeteries. Worse, it is removing valuable plant food from the biosphere – a step towards global food suicide.

“For every tonne of coal burnt, about 11 tonnes of gases are exhausted – 7.5 tonnes of nitrogen, 2.5 tonnes of CO2 and one tonne of water vapour. These are all harmless and valuable natural recycled atmospheric gases. Life on earth would be impossible without them.

“Normally these harmless gases are vented to the atmosphere after filters take out nasties like soot and noxious fumes. To capture the CO2 would require additional energy to collect the 11 tonnes of gases and separate the 2.5 tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of coal burnt. Then even more energy would be required to compress this 2.5 tonnes of CO2 and pump it to the burial site.

“All of this is possible, but the capital and operating costs will be horrendous. It is estimated that 30% - 40% of the power currently generated will be used just on carbon capture, compression and pumping. More energy still is required to produce and erect the steel for all those pumps and pipes and to drill the disposal wells. All this will chew up more coal resources and produce yet more carbon dioxide, for no benefit.

“But the real problem starts at the burial site.

“There is no vacuum occurring naturally anywhere on earth – every bit of space is occupied by solids, liquids or gases. Thus to dispose of CO2 underground requires it to be pumped AGAINST the pressure of whatever is in the pore space of the rock formation now – either natural gases or liquids. These pressures can be substantial, especially after more gas is pumped in.

“The natural gases in rock formations are commonly air, CO2, methane or rotten egg gas. The liquids are commonly fresh or salty water or, very rarely, liquid hydrocarbons.

To find a place where you could drive out oil or natural gas in order to make space to bury CO2 would be like winning the Lottery – a profitable but very unlikely event. Pumping air out is costly, pumping CO2 out to make room for CO2 is pointless and releasing large quantities of salty water or rotten egg gas would create a real surface problem, unlike the imaginary threat from CO2.

“In normal times, pumping fresh water out would be seen as a boon for most locals, but these days it is probably prohibited. Naturally, some carbon dioxide will dissolve in groundwater and pressurise it, so that the next water driller in the area could get a real bonus – bubbling Perrier Water on tap, worth more than oil..

“Regulating carbon dioxide is best left to the oceans – they have been doing it for millions of years. It’s time for tax payers and shareholders to protest this gigantic waste of money, energy and coal resources on fantasies like carbon capture and burial.

“Because, no matter where we look for space for carbon dioxide burial, we will find signs saying:

“All carbon cemeteries are already full”.

When Will We Dump Judges Who Ignore The Constitution?

2010-05-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

Constitution takes hit from Supreme Court
Citing unapproved treaty is 'act of most fundamental reordering of legal system'

By Bob Unruh

The fundamentals of the U.S. Constitution possibly have been shoved one step closer to irrelevance by the U.S. Supreme Court, which yesterday cited as support for its opinion an international treaty that has not been adopted in the U.S.

The issue is raising alarms for those who have been fighting the trend toward adopting "international" standards for American jurisprudence rather than relying on a strict application of the Constitution.

"It is bad enough for the Supreme Court to engage in judicial activism," said Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association. "It is far worse when the justices employ international law in support of their far-reaching edicts.

Don't underestimate the globalists. "The Beast on the East River" presents a frightening exposé of the United Nations' global power grab and its ruthless attempt to control U.S. education, law, gun ownership, taxation, and reproductive rights.

"We have not ratified the U.N. child's rights treaty – its provisions should not be finding their way into Supreme Court decisions," he said.

Roger Kiska, legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund who is based in Europe, said the Supreme Court's use of an unadopted precedent "completely overlooks the checks and balances system that is established by the U.S. Constitution."

It's not the first time the court has done it, and, "It's never amounted to any good," he said in a telephone interview from his base of operations in Europe. "It leans toward social radicalism."

He said there are reasons why the U.S. never adopted the U.N. convention, citing a recent case in Sweden in which a child was taken away from his home because his parents were homeschooling him, and other issues.

The child, Domenic Johanssen, has been in the custody of social services agents for almost a year now as his parents have fought unsuccessfully for his return home.

"That is a prime example of what can happen when the Convention on the Rights of the Child is used as a sword rather than as a shield," Kiska said.

(Story continues below)

The Graham v. Florida decision dealt with whether young people can be sentenced to life prison terms if they haven't killed the victims of their crimes. The issue arose in the case of Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17. He now is 23 and is in a Florida prison – for life.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who frequently swings to the liberal side of the court, said such life sentences are not allowed.

"The state has denied him any chance to later demonstrate that he is fit to rejoin society based solely on a non-homicide crime that he committed while he was a child in the eyes of the law," Kennedy's majority opinion said. "This the Eighth Amendment does not permit."

Wrote Kennedy:

We also note, as petitioner and his amici emphasize, that Article 37(a) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U. N. T. S. 3 (entered into force Sept. 2, 1990), ratified by every nation except the United States and Somalia, prohibits the imposition of 'life imprisonment without possibility of release . . . for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age.'

Kennedy's opinion continued:

The court has treated the laws and practices of other nations and international agreements as relevant to the Eighth Amendment not because those norms are binding or controlling but because the judgment of the world's nations that a particular sentencing practice is inconsistent with basic principles of decency demonstrates that the court's rationale has respected reasoning to support it.

Jordan Sekulow, director of international operations for the American Center for Law and Justice, told WND the first danger is citing U.N. precedents at all.

Then comes the citation of international concepts that have not been adopted in the U.S.

"When they're citing laws that have not been adopted, they are creating new legal ground," he warned.

"It's great that all these other countries have adopted the laws, but until we've actually implemented it, it should have no impact whatsoever on our Supreme Court," he said.

He warned that such activism will lead the U.S. into trouble.

Other nations' courts already have been busy creating "new human rights" such as the "right" to "health care," he said.

"You can see that line of reasoning in cases," he said.

Farris, who had filed a brief in the Graham case on behalf of members of Congress, said, "There is simply no place for international law or practice in interpreting the American Constitution. International law has its place in deciding truly international cases – but a case involving juvenile offenders in Florida is a domestic case through and through.

"It was plainly gratuitous for the majority to employ international law in this context," he said.

Farris also is involved in Parental Rights, an organization urging a U.S. Constitution amendment to protect the rights of parents and families.

The amendment plan already has the support of seven members of the U.S. Senate and more than 130 in the House.

The brief filed by Farris was a response to arguments from Amnesty International, which sought the inclusion of international opinion in the Supreme Court ruling.

In claiming the U.S. was the only nation with such penalties, Amnesty had offered to the court "a hodgepodge of letters and e-mails supposedly on file in Amnesty's offices. Such 'evidence' would not be admissible in a traffic court; it is shocking that the Supreme Court relies on such data to make constitutional decisions," Farris said.

"Our brief demonstrated that the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child (the U.N.'s official monitoring body) had found that dozens of nations were in violation of the juvenile sentencing standards of the U.N. child's rights treaty. It is simply fiction to say that the United States is the only nation which authorizes such sentences," he said.

Farris told WND that references to the Constitution still will remain foundational in Supreme Court opinions. But he said essentially what will happen is that there will be "new content" ascribed to the original document.

"I think that it is an act of the most fundamental reordering of the legal system," he told WND.

The Parental Rights organization is working in support of a plan submitted by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., whose S. Res. 519 is urging President Obama to refrain from sending the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child to the U.S. Senate for a ratification vote.

"S. Res. 519 seeks to put the Senate of the United States on record that American law and only American law should govern our families and our juvenile courts," Farris said. "I hope that every American who believes that we should remain a self-governing nation will call their senators today to urge them to become a co-sponsor of S. Res. 519."

The proposal expresses "the sense of the Senate that the primary safeguard for the well-being and protection of children is the family, and that the primary safeguards for the legal rights of children in the United States are the Constitutions of the United States and the several states, and that, because the use of international treaties to govern policy in the United States on families and children is contrary to principles of self-government and federalism."

DeMint's proposal explains Professor Geraldine Van Bueren, the author of the principal textbook on the international rights of the child and a participant in the drafting of the convention, has described the "'best interest of the child standard' in the treaty as 'provid[ing] decision and policy makers with the authority to substitute their own decisions for either the child's or the parents.'"

The U.N. already has ruled the United Kingdom in violation of the convention for allowing parents to opt their own children out of a sex education course and determined both Indonesia and Egypt out of compliance because of the way those nations structured their national budgets.

A year ago, the HSLDA reported Graham Badman generated a report reviewed by the U.K. government that stated the UNCRC "gives children and young people over 40 substantive rights which include the right to express their views freely, the right to be heard in any legal or administrative matters that affect them and the right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas."

Why Do We Ignore History?

2010-05-14T08:04:00.001-07:00

A Hidden History of Evil
Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives?
Though Mikhail Gorbachev is lionized in the West, the untranslated archives suggest a much darker figure.
Marc Riboud/Magnum Photos
Though Mikhail Gorbachev is lionized in the West, the untranslated archives suggest a much darker figure.

In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history.

For evidence of this indifference, consider the unread Soviet archives. Pavel Stroilov, a Russian exile in London, has on his computer 50,000 unpublished, untranslated, top-secret Kremlin documents, mostly dating from the close of the Cold War. He stole them in 2003 and fled Russia. Within living memory, they would have been worth millions to the CIA; they surely tell a story about Communism and its collapse that the world needs to know. Yet he can’t get anyone to house them in a reputable library, publish them, or fund their translation. In fact, he can’t get anyone to take much interest in them at all.

Then there’s Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, who once spent 12 years in the USSR’s prisons, labor camps, and psikhushkas—political psychiatric hospitals—after being convicted of copying anti-Soviet literature. He, too, possesses a massive collection of stolen and smuggled papers from the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which, as he writes, “contain the beginnings and the ends of all the tragedies of our bloodstained century.” These documents are available online at bukovsky-archives.net, but most are not translated. They are unorganized; there are no summaries; there is no search or index function. “I offer them free of charge to the most influential newspapers and journals in the world, but nobody wants to print them,” Bukovsky writes. “Editors shrug indifferently: So what? Who cares?”

The originals of most of Stroilov’s documents remain in the Kremlin archives, where, like most of the Soviet Union’s top-secret documents from the post-Stalin era, they remain classified. They include, Stroilov says, transcripts of nearly every conversation between Gorbachev and his foreign counterparts—hundreds of them, a near-complete diplomatic record of the era, available nowhere else. There are notes from the Politburo taken by Georgy Shakhnazarov, an aide of Gorbachev’s, and by Politburo member Vadim Medvedev. There is the diary of Anatoly Chernyaev—Gorbachev’s principal aide and deputy chief of the body formerly known as the Comintern—which dates from 1972 to the collapse of the regime. There are reports, dating from the 1960s, by Vadim Zagladin, deputy chief of the Central Committee’s International Department until 1987 and then Gorbachev’s advisor until 1991. Zagladin was both envoy and spy, charged with gathering secrets, spreading disinformation, and advancing Soviet influence.

When Gorbachev and his aides were ousted from the Kremlin, they took unauthorized copies of these documents with them. The documents were scanned and stored in the archives of the Gorbachev Foundation, one of the first independent think tanks in modern Russia, where a handful of friendly and vetted researchers were given limited access to them. Then, in 1999, the foundation opened a small part of the archive to independent researchers, including Stroilov. The key parts of the collection remained restricted; documents could be copied only with the written permission of the author, and Gorbachev refused to authorize any copies whatsoever. But there was a flaw in the foundation’s security, Stroilov explained to me. When things went wrong with the computers, as often they did, he was able to watch the network administrator typing the password that gave access to the foundation’s network. Slowly and secretly, Stroilov copied the archive and sent it to secure locations around the world.

When I first heard about Stroilov’s documents, I wondered if they were forgeries. But in 2006, having assessed the documents with the cooperation of prominent Soviet dissidents and Cold War spies, British judges concluded that Stroilov was credible and granted his asylum request. The Gorbachev Foundation itself has since acknowledged the documents’ authenticity.

Bukovsky’s story is similar. In 1992, President Boris Yeltsin’s government invited him to testify at the Constitutional Court of Russia in a case concerning the constitutionality of the Communist Party. The Russian State Archives granted Bukovsky access to its documents to prepare his testimony. Using a handheld scanner, he copied thousands of documents and smuggled them to the West.

The Russian state cannot sue Stroilov or Bukovsky for breach of copyright, since the material was created by the Communist Party and the Soviet Union, neither of which now exists. Had he remained in Russia, however, Stroilov believes that he could have been prosecuted for disclosure of state secrets or treason. The military historian Igor Sutyagin is now serving 15 years in a hard-labor camp for the crime of collecting newspaper clippings and other open-source materials and sending them to a British consulting firm. The danger that Stroilov and Bukovsky faced was real and grave; they both assumed, one imagines, that the world would take notice of what they had risked so much to acquire.

Stroilov claims that his documents “tell a completely new story about the end of the Cold War. The ‘commonly accepted’ version of history of that period consists of myths almost entirely. These documents are capable of ruining each of those myths.” Is this so? I couldn’t say. I don’t read Russian. Of Stroilov’s documents, I have seen only the few that have been translated into English. Certainly, they shouldn’t be taken at face value; they were, after all, written by Communists. But the possibility that Stroilov is right should surely compel keen curiosity.

For instance, the documents cast Gorbachev in a far darker light than the one in which he is generally regarded. In one document, he laughs with the Politburo about the USSR’s downing of Korean Airlines flight 007 in 1983—a crime that was not only monstrous but brought the world very near to nuclear Armageddon. These minutes from a Politburo meeting on October 4, 1989, are similarly disturbing:

Lukyanov reports that the real number of casualties on Tiananmen Square was 3,000.

Gorbachev: We must be realists. They, like us, have to defend themselves. Three thousands . . . So what?

And a transcript of Gorbachev’s conversation with Hans-Jochen Vogel, the leader of West Germany’s Social Democratic Party, shows Gorbachev defending Soviet troops’ April 9, 1989, massacre of peaceful protesters in Tbilisi.

Stroilov’s documents also contain transcripts of Gorbachev’s discussions with many Middle Eastern leaders. These suggest interesting connections between Soviet policy and contemporary trends in Russian foreign policy. Here is a fragment from a conversation reported to have taken place with Syrian president Hafez al-Assad on April 28, 1990:

H. ASSAD. To put pressure on Israel, Baghdad would need to get closer to Damascus, because Iraq has no common borders with Israel. . . .

M. S. GORBACHEV. I think so, too. . . .

H. ASSAD. Israel’s approach is different, because the Judaic religion itself states: the land of Israel spreads from Nile to Euphrates and its return is a divine predestination.

M. S. GORBACHEV. But this is racism, combined with Messianism!

H. ASSAD. This is the most dangerous form of racism.

One doesn’t need to be a fantasist to wonder whether these discussions might be relevant to our understanding of contemporary Russian policy in a region of some enduring strategic significance.

There are other ways in which the story that Stroilov’s and Bukovsky’s papers tell isn’t over. They suggest, for example, that the architects of the European integration project, as well as many of today’s senior leaders in the European Union, were far too close to the USSR for comfort. This raises important questions about the nature of contemporary Europe—questions that might be asked when Americans consider Europe as a model for social policy, or when they seek European diplomatic cooperation on key issues of national security.

According to Zagladin’s reports, for example, Kenneth Coates, who from 1989 to 1998 was a British member of the European Parliament, approached Zagladin on January 9, 1990, to discuss what amounted to a gradual merger of the European Parliament and the Supreme Soviet. Coates, says Zagladin, explained that “creating an infrastructure of cooperation between the two parliament[s] would help . . . to isolate the rightists in the European Parliament (and in Europe), those who are interested in the USSR’s collapse.” Coates served as chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights from 1992 to 1994. How did it come to pass that Europe was taking advice about human rights from a man who had apparently wished to “isolate” those interested in the USSR’s collapse and sought to extend Soviet influence in Europe?

Or consider a report on Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, who led Spain’s integration into the European Community as its foreign minister. On March 3, 1989, according to these documents, he explained to Gorbachev that “the success of perestroika means only one thing—the success of the socialist revolution in contemporary conditions. And that is exactly what the reactionaries don’t accept.” Eighteen months later, Ordóñez told Gorbachev: “I feel intellectual disgust when I have to read, for example, passages in the documents of ‘G7’ where the problems of democracy, freedom of human personality and ideology of market economy are set on the same level. As a socialist, I cannot accept such an equation.” Perhaps most shockingly, the Eastern European press has reported that Stroilov’s documents suggest that François Mitterrand was maneuvering with Gorbachev to ensure that Germany would unite as a neutral, socialist entity under a Franco-Soviet condominium.

Zagladin’s records also note that the former leader of the British Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, approached Gorbachev—unauthorized, while Kinnock was leader of the opposition—through a secret envoy to discuss the possibility of halting the United Kingdom’s Trident nuclear-missile program. The minutes of the meeting between Gorbachev and the envoy, MP Stuart Holland, read as follows:

In [Holland’s] opinion, Soviet Union should be very interested in liquidation of “Tridents” because, apart from other things, the West—meaning the US, Britain and France—would have a serious advantage over the Soviet Union after the completion of START treaty. That advantage will need to be eliminated. . . . At the same time Holland noted that, of course, we can seriously think about realisation of that idea only if the Labour comes to power. He said Thatcher . . . would never agree to any reduction of nuclear armaments.

Kinnock was vice president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004, and his wife, Glenys, is now Britain’s minister for Europe. Gerard Batten, a member of the UK Independence Party, has noted the significance of the episode. “If the report given to Mr. Gorbachev is true, it means that Lord Kinnock approached one of Britain’s enemies in order to seek approval regarding his party’s defense policy and, had he been elected, Britain’s defense policy,” Batten said to the European Parliament in 2009. “If this report is true, then Lord Kinnock would be guilty of treason.”

Similarly, Baroness Catherine Ashton, who is now the European Union’s foreign minister, was treasurer of Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1980 to 1982. The papers offer evidence that this organization received “unidentified income” from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Stroilov’s papers suggest as well that the government of the current Spanish EU commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Joaquín Almunia, enthusiastically supported the Soviet project of gradually unifying Germany and Europe into a socialist “common European home” and strongly opposed the independence of the Baltic states and then of Ukraine.

Perhaps it doesn’t surprise you to read that prominent European politicians held these views. But why doesn’t it? It is impossible to imagine that figures who had enjoyed such close ties to the Nazi Party—or, for that matter, to the Ku Klux Klan or to South Africa’s apartheid regime—would enjoy top positions in Europe today. The rules are different, apparently, for Communist fellow travelers. “We now have the EU unelected socialist party running Europe,” Stroilov said to me. “Bet the KGB can’t believe it.”

And what of Zagladin’s description of his dealings with our own current vice president in 1979?

Unofficially, [Senator Joseph] Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for “human rights.” . . . In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.

Remarkably, the world has shown little interest in the unread Soviet archives. That paragraph about Biden is a good example. Stroilov and Bukovsky coauthored a piece about it for the online magazine FrontPage on October 10, 2008; it passed without remark. Americans considered the episode so uninteresting that even Biden’s political opponents didn’t try to turn it into political capital. Imagine, if you can, what it must feel like to have spent the prime of your life in a Soviet psychiatric hospital, to know that Joe Biden is now vice president of the United States, and to know that no one gives a damn.

Bukovsky’s book about the story that these documents tell, Jugement à Moscou, has been published in French, Russian, and a few other Slavic languages, but not in English. Random House bought the manuscript and, in Bukovsky’s words, tried “to force me to rewrite the whole book from the liberal left political perspective.” Bukovsky replied that “due to certain peculiarities of my biography I am allergic to political censorship.” The contract was canceled, the book was never published in English, and no other publisher has shown interest in it. Neither has anyone wanted to publish EUSSR, a pamphlet by Stroilov and Bukovsky about the Soviet roots of European integration. In 2004, a very small British publisher did print an abbreviated version of the pamphlet; it, too, passed unnoticed.

Stroilov has a long list of complaints about journalists who have initially shown interest in the documents, only to tell him later that their editors have declared the story insignificant. In advance of Gorbachev’s visit to Germany for the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Stroilov says, he offered the German press the documents depicting Gorbachev unflatteringly. There were no takers. In France, news about the documents showing Mitterrand’s and Gorbachev’s plans to turn Germany into a dependent socialist state prompted a few murmurs of curiosity, nothing more. Bukovsky’s vast collection about Soviet sponsorship of terrorism, Palestinian and otherwise, remains largely unpublished.

Stroilov says that he and Bukovsky approached Jonathan Brent of Yale University Press, which is leading a publishing project on the history of the Cold War. He claims that initially Brent was enthusiastic and asked him to write a book, based on the documents, about the first Gulf War. Stroilov says that he wrote the first six chapters, sent them off, and never heard from Brent again, despite sending him e-mail after e-mail. “I can only speculate what so much frightened him in that book,” Stroilov wrote to me.

I’ve also asked Brent and received no reply. This doesn’t mean anything; people are busy. I am less inclined to believe in complex attempts to suppress the truth than I am in indifference and preoccupation with other things. Stroilov sees in these events “a kind of a taboo, the vague common understanding in the Establishment that it is better to let sleeping dogs lie, not to throw stones in a house of glass, and not to mention a rope in the house of a hanged man.” I suspect it is something even more disturbing: no one much cares.

“I know the time will come,” Stroilov says, “when the world has to look at those documents very carefully. We just cannot escape this. We have no way forward until we face the truth about what happened to us in the twentieth century. Even now, no matter how hard we try to ignore history, all these questions come back to us time and again.”

The questions come back time and again, it is true, but few remember that they have been asked before, and few remember what the answer looked like. No one talks much about the victims of Communism. No one erects memorials to the throngs of people murdered by the Soviet state. (In his widely ignored book, A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Alexander Yakovlev, the architect of perestroika under Gorbachev, puts the number at 30 to 35 million.)

Indeed, many still subscribe to the essential tenets of Communist ideology. Politicians, academics, students, even the occasional autodidact taxi driver still stand opposed to private property. Many remain enthralled by schemes for central economic planning. Stalin, according to polls, is one of Russia’s most popular historical figures. No small number of young people in Istanbul, where I live, proudly describe themselves as Communists; I have met such people around the world, from Seattle to Calcutta.

We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis’ ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about. If they contain what Stroilov and Bukovsky say—and all the evidence I’ve seen suggests that they do—this is the obligation of anyone who gives a damn about history, foreign policy, and the scores of millions dead.

Claire Berlinski, a contributing editor of City Journal, is an American journalist who lives in Istanbul. She is the author of There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.

Feds Try To Control What We Eat

2010-05-14T06:46:00.000-07:00

Feds tell court they can decide what you eat
By Bob Unruh

Attorneys for the federal government have argued in a lawsuit pending in federal court in Iowa that individuals have no "fundamental right" to obtain what food they choose.

The brief was filed April 26 in support of a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund over the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ban on the interstate sale of raw milk.

"There is no 'deeply rooted' historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds," states the document signed by U.S. Attorney Stephanie Rose, assistant Martha Fagg and Roger Gural, trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.

"Plaintiffs' assertion of a 'fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families' is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish," the government has argued.

WND has reported several times on fed crackdowns on producers of raw milk for friends and neighbors, including the recent case when agents arrived to inspect a private property belonging to Dan Allgyer in Pennsylvania at 5 a.m.

The incident was followed by a report a few days later that documented a proposal pending in Congress that critics say would do for the nation's food supply what the new health-care reform law has done for health-care resources.

"S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010, may be the most dangerous bill in the history of the U.S.," critiqued Steve Green on the Food Freedom blog. "It is to our food what the bailout was to our economy, only we can live without money."

The plan is sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who explains the legislation "is a critical step toward equipping the FDA with the authorities and funding it needs to regulate what is now a global marketplace for food, drugs, devices and cosmetics."

Now it's statism on our plate! Mark Levin's manifesto – 'Liberty and Tyranny' – provides the antidote to its growing stranglehold

His website explains, "The legislation requires foreign and domestic food facilities to have safety plans in place to prevent food hazards before they occur, increases the frequency of inspections. Additionally, it provides strong, flexible enforcement tools, including mandatory recall. Most importantly, this bill generates the resources to support FDA food-safety activities."

The proposal cleared the U.S. House last year but has been languishing in the Senate because of a full calendar of projects. It creates a long list of new requirements for food-producing entities to meet the demands of the secretary of agriculture. It is expected to be the subject of discussion in coming days.

The Iowa case alleges the federal restrictions on raw milk are a violation of the U.S. Constitution, according to a report at Natural News.

The federal attorneys want the case dismissed.

"The interest claimed by plaintiffs could be framed more narrowly as a right to 'provide themselves and their families with the foods of their own choice,'" the government document states. But the attorneys say that right doesn't exist.

"The FDA essentially believes that nobody has the right to choose what to eat or drink," said the Natural News site, which explains it covers topics that allow individuals to make positive changes in their health, environmental sensitivity and consumer choices.

"You are only 'allowed' to eat or drink what the FDA gives you permission to. There is no inherent right or God-given right to consume any foods from nature without the FDA's consent."

The Natural News report continued, "The state, in other words, may override your food decisions and deny you free access to the foods and beverages you wish to consume. And the state may do this for completely unscientific reasons – even just political reasons – all at their whim."

The report cited an increasing level of frustration on the part of the federal government because of tactics including buying "cow shares" in which a consumer drinks milk from a cow he partly owns, or "buying clubs."

"This arrangement drives the FDA absolutely batty because it bypasses their authority and allows free people to engage in the free sales of raw dairy products produced on small family farms," Natural News said.

The report blames the aggressive campaign against raw milk on large commercial dairy interests, "because it threatens the commercial milk business."

The reason cannot be safety, the report said, since a report from the Weston A. Price Foundation revealed that from 1980 to 2005 there were 10 times more illnesses from pasteurized milk than from raw milk.

The federal government attorneys say the FDA's goal is to prevent disease, and that's why the "ban on the interstate sale of unpasteurized milk" was adopted.

The attorneys conceded that states ordinarily are expected to regulate intrastate activity but noted, "it is within HHS's authority … to institute an intrastate ban as well."

Natural News reported the ban could be seen as violating the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which leaves to states all powers not specifically designated in the Constitution for the federal body.

In fact, according to the Wisconsin State Journal, lawmakers there have adopted a bill, with the governor's support, that would allow farmers to sell raw milk directly to consumers.

The move puts Wisconsin in position to be the 20th state to allow direct sales of raw milk. Another handful of states allow retail sales.

Slimeball Waxman Hides Bill

2010-05-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

HENRY WAXMAN’S SNEAK ATTACK ON DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS

Last week and over the weekend, the Internet was buzzing about a heretofore undetected provision Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., had slipped into the Wall Street financial reform bill that the House passed in December – a provision critics warned could devastate the nutritional supplement industry with excessive regulations, driving up the costs of supplements or removing them from the market altogether.

“The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 (H.R. 4173) …includes language going far beyond finance,” the Alliance for Natural Health-USA, a D.C.-based health freedom advocacy group, stated in an April 27 report, with the warning: “This language could be used for an end run around the Dietary Supplement Health and Safety Act (DSHEA), the legislation that governs dietary supplement regulation by the FDA.”

DSHEA was passed by Congress in 1994 in response to public outrage over a series of FDA armed raids on health food stores and alternative medicine clinics; it’s the landmark law designed to protect access to dietary supplements and to information about these products.

The Waxman provision does not affect DSHEA. It has nothing to do with lending institutions or financial matters, nor does it refer to the Food and Drug Administration, the agency tasked with regulating dietary supplements. Instead, it deals with the Federal Trade Commission, an agency set up in 1914 to protect the public from allegedly deceptive advertising and “anti-competition” business practices.

“A direct attack on supplements would take the form of an amendment to DSHEA, since that legislation governs FDA regulation of supplements,” ANH-USA explains. “In this case, Waxman has left DSHEA alone, and has instead inserted language in the Wall St. ‘reform’ bill that gives the Federal Trade Commission important new powers that could be used to circumvent key supplement protections in DSHEA.”

Repeal Obamacare NOW!

2010-05-12T07:34:00.001-07:00

The Road to Repeal is Well Under Way

"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told us just weeks before Congress passed President Barack Obama's health care plan. Well, the nation's post-passage Obamacare education continued yesterday when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that the federal government will have to spend an additional $115 billion implementing the law, bringing the total estimated cost to over $1 trillion. The estimate had been requested before passage of the bill by Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), but the CBO was too overwhelmed with the Democrats' other constant revisions to the law to get back to Lewis before the final vote.

This is by far not the only nasty little surprise that has come back to bite Obamacare after passage. Shortly after it became law, U.S. employers began reporting hundreds of millions if dollars in losses thanks to tax changes in the bill. AT&T and Verizon alone pegged their Obamacare tax losses at around $1 billion each. At first, Democrats in Congress were outraged by the announcements and threatened to hold hearings persecuting these companies. But then the Democrats not only found out the companies were obligated by law to report their Obamacare related losses, but that the losses were a signal these companies might have to dump their employees' and retirees' health care coverage all together.

Then the Obama administration's own Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released its final cost projections for Obamacare, finding that, contrary to White House claims, the legislation will increase national health care spending by $311 billion over the next decade. The CMS report also revealed that: 1) 18 million Americans will pay $33 billion in penalties for failing to comply with Obamacare’s individual mandate and still receive no health care; 2) U.S. employers will pay $87 billion in employer mandate penalties; 3) 14 million Americans will lose their current employer-based health coverage; 4) 7.4 million seniors will lose their current Medicare Advantage benefits; 5) 15% of all Medicare providers will be made unprofitable, thus “jeopardizing access to care for beneficiaries.”

Facing this onslaught of reality, the Obama administration has swooped into full spin mode, devoting the Weekly Presidential Address to explaining the "real benefits" Obamacare is "already delivering" to Americans. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius then sent letters to House and Senate leaders touting her "progress" in implementing the law. And then last night White House aides Nancy-Ann DeParle and Stephanie Cutter briefed the House Democratic Caucus on the "tangible benefits" of the law. The sales pitch for all three events were the same: 1) "adults" age 26 and younger can be added to their parents' plan (never mind that this drives up their parents' health care costs); 2) new high-risk pools for Americans with pre-existing conditions (never mind that 19 states have rejected working with HHS since Obamacare massively underfunded the pools); 3) supplementing insurance for early retirees (never mind that the Medicare Advantage cuts and tax changes mentioned above are a big reason why seniors will need supplemental coverage).

Democrats know that Americans simply are not buying what they are selling. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) tells Politico: "It's just like trying to explain the Encyclopedia Britannica." And John Spratt (D-SC) adds: "You need to know what you're talking about and this is extremely complex. It's really difficult to remember, 'was this in this bill, or was this in the bill Senate side.'" Maybe Spratt should have figured out what was and wasn't in the bill before he voted for it.

Since the left can't even figure out what is in the bill they are trying to defend, the latest Rasmussen Reports shows that 63% of likely voters now believe it will increase the federal deficit, and 56% now favor repeal. Not waiting for this November's elections to change the leadership in Congress, states are leading the way on the road to repeal. According to The Washington Post 33 states have mounted legal and legislative challenges to the new law. Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Goldwater Institute, tells the Post: "This is going to be a long, protracted war of attrition and we haven't even seen the first wave of regulations yet. ... The initial challenges to McCain-Feingold were rejected. But since then, litigators found the vulnerabilities. Likewise, here I think you're going to see a thousand flowers bloom in terms of lawsuits. I'm hoping that this will die a death of a thousand cuts."

Michelle Obama's Self-Righteous Lies

2010-05-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

Michelle Obama: Food Profiteer Turned Food Cop
By Michelle Malkin
May 12, 2010

Let me summarize first lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity agenda: Shed as I say, not as I gain. While she crusades for organic foods and puts government pressure on corporations to stop marketing fast food and junk food to children, Mrs. Obama herself profited from the very same processed food industry she now demonizes.

In June 2005, a few months after her husband was elected to the U.S. Senate, Mrs. Obama hustled a seat on the corporate Board of Directors of TreeHouse Foods, Inc. Despite zero experience, the food-processing company put her on its audit and nominating and corporate governance committees. For her on-the-job training and the privilege of putting her name and face on their literature, the company forked over $45,000 in 2005 and $51,200 in 2006 to Mrs. Obama -- as well as 7,500 TreeHouse stock options worth more than $72,000 for each year.

The chairman of the TreeHouse Foods board, Sam K. Reed, was a top executive at Kellogg's and Keebler Foods, home of that great menace to children, the Keebler Elf. Before that, he headed up Mother's Cake and Cookie Company. The conglomerate sells cheese sauces, Cremora non-dairy creamer, instant soup, puddings and powdered soft drink mixes. Hardly the stuff of Mrs. Obama's new vision of nutritional paradise. TreeHouse is also a leading supplier of pickles used in the burgers of evil fast food chain McDonald's -- exactly the kind of corporate restaurants Mrs. Obama is now targeting in her war on urban "food deserts."

The corporation-bashing Mrs. Obama would have continued raking in her TreeHouse cash if it hadn't been for her husband's pesky pledge to pander to Big Labor and swear off Wal-Mart. The retail giant, you see, happened to be TreeHouse's biggest customer. And Wal-Mart is to Big Labor as sunshine is to Dracula.

In May 2007, Obama told AFL-CIO workers in Trenton, N.J., that Wal-Mart was dead to him. "I won't shop there," he pledged, with an eye toward embarrassing then-chief rival Hillary Clinton, who had served on Wal-Mart's board from 1986-1992. The AFL-CIO has waged relentless attacks on Wal-Mart, dubbing it the "Poster Store for Greed." That, by extension, would make Mrs. Obama -- all-too-happy recipient of a Wal-Mart dependent compensation package worth more than $100,000 in 2008, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records -- a Poster Child for Ancillary Avarice.

Candidate Obama shrugged off his wife's conflict of interest. "Michelle and I have to live in the world and pay taxes and pay for our kids and save for retirement," Obama explained to Crain's Chicago Business magazine before his White House bid. Political expediency, alas, required that the candidate's wife step down when the issue reared its head after Obama's Wal-Mart bashing during the presidential campaign cycle. True to form, Mrs. Obama turned the decision into an ostentatious display of self-sacrifice:

"As my campaign commitments continue to ramp up, it is becoming more difficult for me to provide the type of focus I would like on my professional responsibilities," said Chicago's Joan of Arc in a resignation statement eight days after her husband declared his boycott of the stores stocked with food items processed and distributed by her TreeHouse colleagues. "My priorities, particularly at this important time, are ensuring that our young daughters feel a sense of comfort and normalcy in this process, and that I can support my husband in his presidential campaign to bring much needed change to this country."

She saw no conflict then. And she sees no conflict now in wielding her East Wing clout to restrict the advertising free speech of the food industry that lined her pocketbook with big, fat paychecks. The Obama White House is on an insatiable control binge. No private space has been left behind -- not your grocery aisles, not your children's TV shows, not even your refrigerator.

Give the first lady this: She has an uncanny knack for wrapping her self-interests in the mantle of self-sacrifice and public service. It's the Obama way.

A Call To Arms

2010-05-11T21:08:00.001-07:00

A Call To Arms

The Obama administration, inspired by Saul Alinsky and the president’s friends and advisors, former underground Weatherman bombers and assassins Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, is intent upon revolutionary extension of socialist statism. They must be stopped if the United States is to survive.
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Summoning Our Inner Hero
By Jeff Lukens

Rarely does the concern of the middle-class reach a point where they start protesting the government en masse. The passage of ObamaCare and the impending financial ruin of our country is now one of those times.

Despite immense opposition, Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress forced through a health care bill, not to improve people’s health care but to expand the power of the state over them. It is the height of arrogance. As ObamaCare moves closer to reality, we know the resulting intrusion of government in our lives will not allow us to continue to live as we have before.

We know the government can’t keep running huge deficits and think there will be no consequences. We know the federal and many state budgets are already broke, and that hard times are coming. We know that Obama is deliberately trying to drive the country off a cliff with debt our grandchildren can never repay. And we know that when we speak out against this madness, they will malign us and likely smear us as racists.

Until recently, many have avoided speaking publicly about politics, and we now know that must change too. We could never live with ourselves if we sat by and did nothing while liberals dismantle the country. We need heroic action, and we know we are the ones who must be the heroes. Each of us need to reach deep and summon what may not come naturally, and bring out the hero that resides inside.

A hero is someone motivated to act beyond his or her own self-interest. It’s that person faced with an overwhelming challenge or moral dilemma who acts for the greater good. He or she acts in the interest of duty, honor, and country.

Think of the iconic hero Rick Blaine (played by Humphrey Bogart) in the movie “Casablanca.” In it, he is a world-weary American in a lawless town. As lost love and horrendous world events spiral beyond his control, he is faced with the uncomfortable necessity of standing up for good. At first Rick shrugs, “I’m not interested in the politics. The problems of the world are not in my department. I’m a saloon keeper.” His response is typical of many of us today.

Rick eventually comes to the realization that he can no longer run away from himself in drink and self-pity. He knows the only way to move forward is bravely to act on the side of good. His inner hero emerges. At great risk, and some sorrow, Rick puts the courageous underground Nazi resistance leader and his wife on the plane to Lisbon so they can continue their movement.

With the daily assault by progressives on our values, we know that all we hold dear about this county they oppose. Like Rick, we know we too must get off the bench and strive for what is right. And we know we must do it soon.

We know we must fight back now before ObamaCare takes effect, not years from now when the benefits become embedded. We know the massive expansion of the federal government into personal health care will drive health insurance providers out of business and force employers to dump their workers on to the government plan.

Obama thinks he can initially hide the negative effects, hooking us on new benefits until they become entrenched, and putting off the reduced care, the cost overruns, and the tax hikes that are sure to come so we will not make the connection between this horrible legislation and the resulting economic carnage. Like so much about this man, this deception is nefarious and dishonest.

But his plan may be backfiring. Suddenly, the steady encroachment of socialism these many decades is very noticeable by tens of millions of ordinary people who care deeply about their county, and they are taking to the streets.

We must start now at working to repeal this health care debacle and remove Obama and his cronies from office. And we must get out of our comfort zone and do what we may have never done before. We must be sure to vote. And we must peacefully do the tasks of manning picket lines at rallies, encouraging our family and friends to get involved, working the phones lines and canvassing precincts to elect conservatives, and more. In short, we must become heroes for the republic.

The cancer of progressivism didn’t start with Barack Obama and his corrupt Congress, but we can see to it that it ends with them. We must never forget the outrage we felt that Sunday in March when these people forced this legislative monstrosity upon us. Let that outrage spur your inner hero on.

Immigration Lies Exposed

2010-05-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

FIVE MYTHS ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION FROM US GOVERNMENT
By Frosty Wooldridge

In a whopping “Pinocchio’s nose grows longer than a football field” essay, the Washington Post published a piece by former INS commissioner Doris Meissner, currently a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. She wrote: “5 myths about immigration” 5/9/2010. Also published by the Denver Post.

Once again, ‘experts’ of the U.S. Government fail, and fail miserably, to engage the American public with integrity, honesty and service to American citizens.

“Despite the fact that we are a nation of immigrants,” said Meissner, “immigration continues to be one of America’s most contentious topics. The new law in Arizona authorizing police to arrest individuals who cannot show documents proving that they are in the country legally has set off a fresh bout of acrimony. But as in the past, much of the debate is founded on mythology.”

Reality check: Americans do not question LEGAL immigration although it proves more methodical at 1.5 million annually and more disastrous as it drives this nation toward adding 100 million people within 25 years. Americans resent ILLEGAL immigration. Meissner stands “up and away” from reality by making such an egregious statement.

THE FIVE MYTHS BY MEISSNER THAT AVOID REALITY

1. “Immigrants take jobs away from Americans”—“Although legal immigrants account for 12.5 percent of the U.S. Population, they make up 15 percent of the work-force,” said Meissner. “As a result of this growth, economists estimate that wages for the vast majority of American workers are slightly higher than they would be without immigration.”

Reality check: Over 20 million Americans suffer unemployment with 35 million Americans subsisting on food stamps. Millions of Americans suffer home foreclosures because they cannot secure jobs. That means those Americans must be supported by working Americans through taxes.

The fact remains: immigrants DO take jobs from Americans. Ten to twelve million fully employed illegal alien migrants displace Americans from jobs and they undercut wages as they work off the books. Over 20 million Americans remain unemployed. But, as Katie Couric announced, the U.S. adds only 95,000 jobs monthly. However, the U.S. Congress adds 150,000 to 180,000 legal immigrants every 30 days. Therefore, those immigrants take jobs away from Americans and we cannot possibly catch up to hire Americans to create full employment. Ms. Meissner needs to go back to sixth grade math to understand the numbers.

2. “Immigration is at an all time high, and most new immigrants came illegally”—“Today, two-thirds of immigrants are here legally,” said Meissner.

Reality check: In 2004, Time Magazine’s Pulitzer Prize winning writers Donald Barlett and Jim Steele, wrote, “What happened?” September 20, 2004. They investigated illegal immigration in that year to equal a whopping: “Three million illegal migrants crossed U.S. borders. It’s fair to estimate, based on a Time investigation, that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. this year will total 3 million—enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day for a year.”

Those numbers, because of the economic downturn, dropped to 1.0 million in 2009. An enormous 40 percent of illegal aliens arrive with legal green cards and visas, but overstay and melt into their racial enclaves to remain illegal for as long as they like. In order to remain, the women birth ‘anchor babies’ at a cost along with other services of $346 billion annually to U.S. taxpayers. (Source: Edwin Rubenstein Report, www.thesocialcontract.com)

3. “Today’s immigrants are not integrating into American life like past waves did”—“Today, as before, immigrant integration takes a generation or two,” said Meissner.

Reality check: Most Americans must press ‘1’ for Spanish and ‘2’ for English across the country, which shows that not only are immigrants not assimilating, their numbers accelerate so fast, they refuse to speak English and work within our society as integral aspects. They remain outside of American life by their linguistic recalcitrant choices.

4. “Cracking down on illegal border crossings will make us safer”—“Since 9/11, we have dramatically strengthened our borders,” said Meissner.

Reality check: In four of the past five years, I personally inspected the borders from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California. We have done NOTHING of any significance to secure the borders. Let me repeat that: NOTHING! Over $75 to $100 billion in drugs crosses the southern border annually and 700,000 plus illegal aliens continue to cross our border from Mexico annually. It’s astounding this lady enjoyed publication in major newspapers of her ‘myths’ by perpetrating outright lies about those myths.

5. “Immigration reform cannot happen in an election year”—“Ruling out immigration reform, whether because Congress has other priorities or because it’s an election year would be a mistake,” said Meissner.

Reality check: To give her the benefit of the doubt, she may be correct. However, the anger and acrimony in Washington, DC today over the health care bill being passed—certainly provides an excoriating environment for immigration reform.

First of all, the past four presidents and Congresses failed to enforce the 1986 immigration amnesty. We do not entertain any chance that this current president or Congress would enforce our borders after yet another amnesty. For anyone that might appreciate HOW deep our predicament, please join Roy Beck at www.numbersusa.com for a look at what we face by downloading “Immigration by the Numbers”. His 14 minute video will show you the futility and insanity of continued mass immigration whether legal or illegal from a line that grows by 77 million annually of poverty stricken people searching for a ‘better life’ in America. You won’t find any media talking about it or addressing it. They run from, avoid, evade and ignore it at all costs.

But if we ignore it as a civilization, immigration will inject 70 million third world people and their cultures of poverty into this country by 2035—a scant 25 years from now. We cannot sustain that number and we most certainly will not survive it with any hope for the continuation of the American Dream for our children.

Listen to Frosty Wooldridge on Wednesdays as he interviews top national leaders on his radio show "Connecting the Dots" at www.themicroeffect.com at 6:00 PM Mountain Time. Adjust tuning in to your time zone.

The Truth About SB 1070

2010-05-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen. I want to explain SB 1070

I'm Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen. I want to explain SB 1070 which I voted for and was just signed by Governor Jan Brewer.
Rancher Rob Krantz was murdered by the drug cartel on his ranch a month ago. I participated in a senate hearing two weeks ago on the border violence, here is just some of the highlights from those who testified.

The people who live within 60 to 80 miles of the Arizona/Mexico Border have for years been terrorized and have pleaded for help to stop the daily invasion of humans who cross their property . One Rancher testified that 300 to 1200 people a DAY come across his ranch vandalizing his property, stealing his vehicles and property, cutting down his fences, and leaving trash. In the last two years he has found 17 dead bodies and two Koran bibles.

Another rancher testified that daily drugs are brought across his ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way. This was not the only rancher we heard that day that talked about the drug trains.

One man told of two illegal's who came upon his property one shot in the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced them to carry the drugs and then shot them. Daily they listen to gun fire during the night it is not safe to leave his family alone on the ranch and they can't leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left when they come back.

The border patrol is not on the border. They have set up 60 miles away with check points that do nothing to stop the invasion. They are not allowed to use force in stopping anyone who is entering. They run around chasing them, if they get their hands on them then they can take them back across the border.

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal's and 20% of Arizona prisons are filled with illegal's. In the last few years 80% of our law enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal.

The majority of people coming now are people we need to be worried about. The ranchers told us that they have seen a change in the people coming they are not just those who are looking for work and a better life.

The Federal Government has refused for years to do anything to help the border states . We have been over run and once they are here we have the burden of funding state services that they use. Education cost have been over a billion dollars. The healthcare cost billions of dollars. Our State is broke, $3.5 billion deficit and we have many serious decisions to make. One is that we do not have the money to care for any who are not here legally. It has to stop.
The border can be secured. We have the technology we have the ability to stop this invasion. We must know who is coming and they must come in an organized manner legally so that we can assimilate them into our population and protect the sovereignty of our country. We are a nation of laws. We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to protect the integrity of our country and the government which we live under.

I would give amnesty today to many, but here is the problem, we dare not do this until the Border is secure. It will do no good to forgive them because thousands will come behind them and we will be over run to the point that there will no longer be the United States of America but a North American Union of open borders. I ask you what form of government will we live under? How long will it be before we will be just like Mexico , Canada or any of the other Central American or South American countries? We have already lost our language, everything must be printed in Spanish also. We have already lost our history it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our borders.

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany . Are you kidding. The ACLU and the leftist courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but it was an effort to try and stop illegal's from setting up businesses, and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause like a traffic stop to determine if they are here legally. Federal law is very clear if you are here on a visa you must have your papers on you at all times. That is the law. In Arizona all you need to show you are a legal citizen is a driver license, MVD identification card, Native American Card, or a Military ID. This is what you need to vote, get a hunting license, etc.. So nothing new has been added to this law. No one is going to be stopped walking down the street etc... The Socialist who are in power in DC are angry because we dare try and do something and that something the Socialist wants us to do is just let them come. They want the "Transformation" to continue.

Maybe it is too late to save America . Maybe we are not worthy of freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I can to protect our Constitutional Republic . Living in America is not a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American is a responsibility and it comes by respecting and upholding the Constitution the law of our land which says what you must do to be a citizen of this country. Freedom is not free.

The Truth About Arizona's Law

2010-04-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

Why Arizona Drew a Line

ON Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a law — SB 1070 — that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is an illegal alien verify the person’s immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it “misguided” and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don’t seem to have done. The arguments we’ve heard against it either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually:

It is unfair to demand that aliens carry their documents with them. It is true that the Arizona law makes it a misdemeanor for an alien to fail to carry certain documents. “Now, suddenly, if you don’t have your papers ... you’re going to be harassed,” the president said. “That’s not the right way to go.” But since 1940, it has been a federal crime for aliens to fail to keep such registration documents with them. The Arizona law simply adds a state penalty to what was already a federal crime. Moreover, as anyone who has traveled abroad knows, other nations have similar documentation requirements.

“Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words. The Arizona law didn’t invent the concept: Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion; when several are combined, the “totality of circumstances” that results may create reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

For example, the Arizona law is most likely to come into play after a traffic stop. A police officer pulls a minivan over for speeding. A dozen passengers are crammed in. None has identification. The highway is a known alien-smuggling corridor. The driver is acting evasively. Those factors combine to create reasonable suspicion that the occupants are not in the country legally.

The law will allow police to engage in racial profiling. Actually, Section 2 provides that a law enforcement official “may not solely consider race, color or national origin” in making any stops or determining immigration status. In addition, all normal Fourth Amendment protections against profiling will continue to apply. In fact, the Arizona law actually reduces the likelihood of race-based harassment by compelling police officers to contact the federal government as soon as is practicable when they suspect a person is an illegal alien, as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment.

It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver’s license. Arizona’s law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver’s license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.

State governments aren’t allowed to get involved in immigration, which is a federal matter. While it is true that Washington holds primary authority in immigration, the Supreme Court since 1976 has recognized that states may enact laws to discourage illegal immigration without being pre-empted by federal law. As long as Congress hasn’t expressly forbidden the state law in question, the statute doesn’t conflict with federal law and Congress has not displaced all state laws from the field, it is permitted. That’s why Arizona’s 2007 law making it illegal to knowingly employ unauthorized aliens was sustained by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

In sum, the Arizona law hardly creates a police state. It takes a measured, reasonable step to give Arizona police officers another tool when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law enforcement duties.

And it’s very necessary: Arizona is the ground zero of illegal immigration. Phoenix is the hub of human smuggling and the kidnapping capital of America, with more than 240 incidents reported in 2008. It’s no surprise that Arizona’s police associations favored the bill, along with 70 percent of Arizonans.

President Obama and the Beltway crowd feel these problems can be taken care of with “comprehensive immigration reform” — meaning amnesty and a few other new laws. But we already have plenty of federal immigration laws on the books, and the typical illegal alien is guilty of breaking many of them. What we need is for the executive branch to enforce the laws that we already have.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration has scaled back work-site enforcement and otherwise shown it does not consider immigration laws to be a high priority. Is it any wonder the Arizona Legislature, at the front line of the immigration issue, sees things differently?

Obama's Stupid Actions Against Israel

2010-04-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama's top ten insults against Israel
By Nile Gardiner

Last week Israel celebrated its 62nd year as a nation, but there was major cause for concern amid the festivities as the Israeli people faced the looming menace of a nuclear-armed Iran, as well as the prospect of a rapidly deteriorating relationship with Washington. The Israel-bashing of the Obama administration has become so bad that even leading Democrats are now speaking out against the White House. New York Senator Chuck Schumer blasted Barack Obama’s stance towards Israel in a radio interview last week, stating his “counter-productive” Israel policy “has to stop”.

At the same time a poll was released by Quinnipiac University which showed that US voters disapproved of the president’s Israel policy by a margin of 44 to 35 percent. According to the poll, “American voters say 57 – 13 percent that their sympathies lie with Israel and say 66 – 19 percent that the president of the United States should be a strong supporter of Israel.”

I recently compiled a list of Barack Obama’s top ten insults against Britain, America’s closest ally in the world. This is a sequel of sorts, a list of major insults by the Obama administration against America’s closest ally in the Middle East, Israel. As I wrote previously on Obama’s treatment of both Britain and Israel:

In the space of just over a year, Barack Obama has managed to significantly damage relations with America’s two closest friends, while currying favour with practically every monstrous dictatorship on the face of the earth. The doctrine of “smart power” has evolved into the shameless appeasement of America’s enemies at the expense of existing alliances. There is nothing clever about this approach – it will ultimately weaken US global power and strengthen the hand of America’s enemies, who have become significantly emboldened and empowered by Barack Obama’s naïve approach since he took office.

The Obama presidency is causing immense damage to America’s standing in the free world, while projecting an image of weakness in front of hostile regimes. Its treatment of both Israel and Britain is an insult and a disgrace, and a grim reflection of an unbelievably crass and insensitive foreign policy that significantly undermines the US national interest.

So here’s my top 10 list of Obama administration insults against Israel after just 15 months in power:

1. Obama’s humiliation of Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House

In March, the Israeli Prime Minister was humiliated by Barack Obama when he visited Washington. As The Telegraph reported, “Benjamin Netanyahu was left to stew in a White House meeting room for over an hour after President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of tense talks to have supper with his family”, after being presented with a list of 13 demands. As I wrote at the time:

This is no way to treat America’s closest ally in the Middle East, and a true friend of the United States. I very much doubt that even third world tyrants would be received in such a rude fashion by the president. In fact, they would probably be warmly welcomed by the Obama White House as part of its “engagement” strategy, while the leaders of Britain and Israel are frequently met with arrogant disdain.

2. Engaging Iran when Tehran threatens a nuclear Holocaust against Israel

In contrast to its very public humiliation of close ally Israel, the Obama administration has gone out of its way to establish a better relationship with the genocidal regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which continues to threaten Israel’s very existence. It has taken almost every opportunity to appease Tehran since it came to office, and has been extremely slow to respond to massive human rights violations by the Iranian regime, including the beating, rape and murder of pro-democracy protesters.

3. Drawing a parallel between Jewish suffering in the Holocaust with the current plight of the Palestinians

In his Cairo speech to the Muslim world, President Obama condemned Holocaust denial in the Middle East, but compared the murder of six million Jews during World War Two to the “occupation” of the Palestinian territories, in a disturbing example of moral equivalence:

“On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.”

4. Obama’s attack on Israeli “occupation” in his speech to the United Nations

In his appalling speech to the UN General Assembly last September, President Obama dedicated five paragraphs to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, without once referring directly to Palestinian terrorism by name, but declaring to loud applause “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.” He also lambasted the Israeli “occupation”, and drew a connection between rocket attacks on Israeli civilians with living conditions in Gaza. The speech served as a ghastly PR exercise aimed at appeasing anti-Israel sentiment in the Middle East, while bashing the Israelis over the head.

5. Obama’s accusation that Israel is the cause of instability in the Middle East

As The Wall Street Journal noted, “the Obama Administration seems increasingly of the view that Israel is the primary cause of instability in the Middle East”, citing a recent press conference where he stated:

“It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.”

6. The Obama administration’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Syria

While actively appeasing Iran, the Obama administration has also sought to develop closer ties with the other main state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East, Syria, establishing diplomatic relations with Damascus in February. Syria remains a major backer of Hamas and Hizbollah, both responsible for a large number of terrorist attacks against Israel.

7. Hillary Clinton’s 43-minute phone call berating Netanyahu

As The Telegraph reported, Hillary Clinton sought to dictate terms to Israel in the wake of Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Jerusalem:

“In a telephone call, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, ordered Mr. Netanyahu to reverse a decision to build 1,600 homes for Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem that sparked the diplomatic row. She also instructed him to issue a formal pledge that peace talks would focus on core issues such as the future of Jerusalem and the borders of a Palestinian state. In addition, the Israeli prime minister was urged to make a substantial confidence-building gesture to the Palestinians. Mrs. Clinton suggested this could take the form of prisoner releases, an easing of the blockade of Gaza and the transfer of greater territory in the West Bank to Palestinian control.”

Last time I checked, Israel was still an independent country, and not a colonial dependency of the Obama White House. Yet that still hasn’t stopped the Secretary of State from acting like an imperial Viceroy.

8. David Axelrod’s attack on Israeli settlements on “Meet the Press”

It is extremely unusual for a White House official to launch an attack on a close US ally on live television, but this is exactly what the President’s Senior Adviser David Axelrod did in an interview in March with NBC’s Meet the Press, designed to cause maximum humiliation to Israel, where he stated in reference to new settlement construction in East Jerusalem:

“This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region. For this announcement to come at that time was very destructive.”

9. Hillary Clinton’s call on Israel to show “respect”

As The Telegraph revealed, the Secretary of State lectured the Israelis at a dinner attended by the Israeli ambassador and the ambassadors of several Arab states in mid-April, urging Israel to “refrain from unilateral statements” that could “undermine trust or risk prejudicing the outcome of talks”. In Clinton’s words:

“Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu has embraced the vision of the two-state solution. But easing up on access and movement in the West Bank, in response to credible Palestinian security performance, is not sufficient to prove to the Palestinians that this embrace is sincere. We encourage Israel to continue building momentum toward a comprehensive peace by demonstrating respect for the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians, stopping settlement activity and addressing the humanitarian needs in Gaza.”

10. Robert Gibbs’ disparaging remarks about Israel

Not one to shy away from criticizing America’s friends when the opportunity arises, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs entered the fray in an interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace in March where he attacked the Israeli government for weakening “the trust that’s needed for both sides to come together and have honest discussions about peace in the Middle East.” In condescending terms he stated that Benjamin Netanyahu should start “coming to the table with constructive ideas for constructive and trustful dialogue about moving the peace process forward.”

The Mexicans Are Hypocrites

2010-04-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

How Mexico Treats Illegal Aliens
by Michelle Malkin

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry new enforcement measures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.

The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?

Michelle Malkin

-- The Mexican government will bar foreigners if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." How's that for racial and ethnic profiling?

-- If outsiders do not enhance the country's "economic or national interests" or are "not found to be physically or mentally healthy," they are not welcome. Neither are those who show "contempt against national sovereignty or security." They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.

-- Illegal entry into the country is equivalent to a felony punishable by two years' imprisonment. Document fraud is subject to fine and imprisonment; so is alien marriage fraud. Evading deportation is a serious crime; illegal re-entry after deportation is punishable by ten years' imprisonment. Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama's illegal alien aunt -- a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim).

-- Law enforcement officials at all levels -- by national mandate -- must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens' arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities.

-- Ready to show your papers? Mexico's National Catalog of Foreigners tracks all outside tourists and foreign nationals. A National Population Registry tracks and verifies the identity of every member of the population, who must carry a citizens' identity card. Visitors who do not possess proper documents and identification are subject to arrest as illegal aliens.

All of these provisions are enshrined in Mexico's Ley General de Población (General Law of the Population) and were spotlighted in a 2006 research paper published by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy. There's been no public clamor for "comprehensive immigration reform" in Mexico, however, because pro-illegal alien speech by outsiders is prohibited.
Consider: Open-borders protesters marched freely at the Capitol building in Arizona, comparing GOP Gov. Jan Brewer to Hitler, waving Mexican flags, advocating that demonstrators "Smash the State," and holding signs that proclaimed "No human is illegal" and "We have rights."

But under the Mexican constitution, such political speech by foreigners is banned. Noncitizens cannot "in any way participate in the political affairs of the country." In fact, a plethora of Mexican statutes enacted by its congress limit the participation of foreign nationals and companies in everything from investment, education, mining and civil aviation to electric energy and firearms. Foreigners have severely limited private property and employment rights (if any).

As for abuse, the Mexican government is notorious for its abuse of Central American illegal aliens who attempt to violate Mexico's southern border. The Red Cross has protested rampant Mexican police corruption, intimidation and bribery schemes targeting illegal aliens there for years. Mexico didn't respond by granting mass amnesty to illegal aliens, as it is demanding that we do. It clamped down on its borders even further. In late 2008, the Mexican government launched an aggressive deportation plan to curtain illegal Cuban immigration and human trafficking through Cancun.

Meanwhile, Mexican consular offices in the United States have coordinated with left-wing social justice groups and the Catholic Church leadership to demand a moratorium on all deportations and a freeze on all employment raids across America.

Mexico is doing the job Arizona is now doing -- a job the U.S. government has failed miserably to do: putting its people first. Here's the proper rejoinder to all the hysterical demagogues in Mexico (and their sympathizers here on American soil) now calling for boycotts and invoking Jim Crow laws, apartheid and the Holocaust because Arizona has taken its sovereignty into its own hands:

Hipócritas.

Packin' It To Church

2010-04-24T06:32:00.000-07:00

“Bring Your Pieces to Church” Sunday
By Joel McDurmon
Imagine the following scenario: At church this Sunday, while reviewing the list of announcements and upcoming events for your church, your pastor added, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your rifles. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”

Absurd, right? Not so. It used to be the American way. For example, a 1631 law in Virginia required citizens to own firearms, to engage in practice with them, and to do so publicly on holy days. It demanded that the people “bring their pieces to the church.” Somewhere along the line we have lost this mindset. Today the ideas of church and arms are assumed to be at odds, as if loving your neighbor has nothing to do with the preservation and defense of life and property.

But the idea of Christian society and an armed, skilled populace actually have deep historical roots. Alfred the Great codified the laws of England in the 9th Century, often resorting to biblical law in order to do so (where he departed from biblical law, the integrity of his famous law code is quite poor). Alfred applied the Deuteronomic laws of kings that forbad a standing army (Deut. 17), and as a result developed a national defense based on militia:

By the Saxon laws, every freeman of an age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency, obliged to join the army.…[1]

This required and encouraged an armed citizenry:

Every landholder was obliged to keep armor and weapons according to his rank and possessions; these he might neither sell, lend, nor pledge, nor even alienate from his heirs. In order to instruct them in the use of arms, they had their stated times for performing their military exercise; and once in a year, usually in the spring, there was a general review of arms, throughout each county.[2]

Imagine! Imagine the government poking its nose in every year not to register and license weapons for possible future confiscation, but to ensure that each house indeed possessed weapons. Imagine that instead of imposing fees for licensing schemes, the government levied fines for not owning a firearm. This was the case in Massachusetts in 1644. The state required that “every freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for himself and each under him able bear arms a sufficient musket and other serviceable piece” as well as “two pounds of powder and ten pounds of bullets.”[3] Those who neglected this duty could receive fines up to ten shillings (for laborers, roughly a day’s wages).

In 1623, Virginia statute forbade anyone to travel unless they were “well armed,” and required that all men working in fields likewise be armed.[4] 1631 laws repeated the same requirements and added to them: all able men should bear arms and engage in practice with their arms. The law specifically required “All men that are fitting to bear arms,” and to “bring their pieces to the church upon pain of every offence.”[5] (Equally shocking to most modern evangelicals is the fine for not obeying these laws: landowners who did not so arm their laborers and workers were required “to pay 2 lbs. of tobacco,” and this fine in tobacco was “to be disposed by the church-wardens, who shall levy it by distress.…”[6]

Imagine that: the government desiring, commanding that every able citizen own weapons and be skilled in using them! And to do so on “holy days” and at Church.[7] (It’s even more unbelievable that the government assumed all men were going to church every Sunday. Perhaps we could increase their numbers if we could reinstate target practice fellowship.)

The legacy of arms and freedom as Christian virtues continued into American Revolution. The Lutheran pastor John Peter Muhlenberg is perhaps the most famous of the “fighting parsons.” He answered George Washington’s personal call to raise troops using his own pulpit and Ecclesiastes 3 to do so. Other ministers of the gospel were well known to preach with loaded guns in the pulpit with them. Pennsylvania preacher John Elder provides a great example: “Commissioned a captain by the Pennsylvania government, he led a company of rangers and was accustomed to preach with his loaded musket across the pulpit.”[8] Likewise, Rev. Thomas Allen, a later collaborator in writing the Massachusetts State Constitution, himself fired the first shot at the Battle of Bennington. In the context of the War for Independence, ministers saw guns as tools of liberty and defense against tyranny.

In a later context, some ministers saw the continued usefulness of firearms. A former cowboy and confederate soldier turned Methodist circuit rider, Rev. Andrew Jackson Potter, preached among tough neighborhoods in the old West. He would regularly walk up, lay his two colt revolvers across the pulpit, and begin to preach. He retained order and security, and encouraged an atmosphere of respect. In this scenario, arms served less as tools of national liberty and more as tools of preservation of life and individual liberty and property.

This same scenario goes on today, by the way. As recently as last fall, pastors in the Detroit area have begun to arms themselves in the pulpit and while on church property. Rises in Detroit crime in general as well as attacks in church buildings in particular have awakened the attention of many Christians. While it is illegal in most states to carry guns on church property, Michigan allows it for the pastor and those he approves.

Christians should be aware that the use of force in preservation of life is a biblical doctrine (Ex. 22:2–3; Prov. 24:10–12; Est. 8–9; Neh. 4; cp. John 15:13–14). Likewise, those who possessed weapons in Scripture are often said to be well skilled in the use of them (Judg. 20:15–16; 1 Chron. 12:1–2, 21–22). We can only surmise that 1) God gave them talent in this regard, and that 2) they engaged in target practice regularly. Further, under biblical law, to be disarmed was to be enslaved and led to a disruption of the economic order due to government regulations and monopolies (1 Sam 13:19–22). But the mere presence of a couple weapons had psychological effects that put criminals to flight (1 Sam 13). There is a reason why Scripture tells these stories: they illustrate the defense of life, liberty, and property in the midst of a fallen world (and fallen governments).

The American Second Amendment did not spring into existence from nowhere. It had a long pedigree. The Christian society emerging from the old laws of Alfred continued to include the ideal of an armed populace as a means of securing human liberties. The Founders, many of them lawyers, had studied that legal tradition and would have read William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769). The first part of the first volume elaborates on the subject of our “principal absolute rights… of personal security, personal liberty, and private property [i.e. life, liberty, and property].” It then covers five means of securing and protecting these rights “inviolate”:

The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.[9]

Within that same legal tradition, and more than a generation earlier, the English philosopher John Locke voiced the sanctity of life, liberty, and property as well as our duty even to use force to preserve it:

Every one, as he is bound to preserve himself… so by the like reason, when his own preservation comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.

Locke elaborated these views within the context of belief in God’s ultimate sovereignty, ownership, and law-order over all of creation:

being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order, and about his business; they are his property, whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one another’s pleasure…[10]

Thomas Jefferson clearly took his phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from Locke, likely via Blackstone. It is no irony that Jefferson kept a portrait of Locke on his parlor wall. Both hated tyranny, and saw freedom as requiring the defense of person and property via use of force if necessary. Both derived this from the Christian legal tradition they inherited.

Today Christians are so brainwashed and affected by progressive propaganda that we have an uneasy feeling even broaching the subject of guns. Constant liberalism in the media and years of government-school indoctrination have eroded the foundations of liberty in this nation. Today Christians think themselves conservative when they back everything the military does. Conservatives think that to oppose the military is to be a leftist. They have no idea that 1) the tradition of imperialistic war grows out of liberal, not conservative, ideology, and 2) the Bible forbids nations to have standing armies or stockpile offensive weapons. The Bible calls for national defense through an armed populace and militia upon necessity. A standing army is an affront to God. But for some reason, alleged conservative politicians easily persuade Christian voters that the next military maneuver is of necessity an expression of conservative values, and the Christians cheer.

We are further brainwashed into thinking (and feeling) that guns are somehow dirty and evil, and that Christians should have nothing to do with them. In this view, we have departed from the Scriptures, Christian legal history, as well as America’s Christian history.

As a remedy for the situation, we should both learn and exercise our gun rights. This article provides merely a beginning of the necessary education. We need much more. Every Christian should read and understand the laws of their particular state. Good places to start are www.handgunlaw.us and opencarry.org (the former site includes coverage of concealed carry laws; the latter deals mainly with open carry). Not only should you know about laws pertaining directly to carrying, but also to those pertaining to the use of deadly force. These vary per state, and Christians should be aware.

But we should also begin to exercise our inviolable rights. Every able Christian should own a firearm, and each should seek instruction and training in how to use them. This includes handguns, shotguns, and rifles, each of which has a particular strength in self- and home-defense. Elders and pastors should teach on the topic and its history, and should help aid church members in obtaining fitting pieces and proper training in legal settings.

One great expression of both education and practice, I have recently learned, appears in the Appleseed Project. These yearly training camps are steeped in American history and wish to advance the forgotten legacy of the American rifleman. Using focused and professional training events across the country, this project teaches and hones shooting skills toward the goal of making you accurate at 500 yards.

In addition to that great project, I recommend taking classes in handgun defense. These are offered by small gun shops and firing ranges around the country. Make use of them.

In states that oppress the inviolable right to bear arms, the best we can do is to organize politically and locally to change the laws. This is not easy, of course, but Christian society demands it as a measure to stop the tyranny of governments and the advance of individual crime. To allow unjust gun laws to continue unchallenged is to fail in loving your neighbor and to vote in favor of Egyptian and Philistine-style servitude. This, of course, demands its own article, but deserves at least mentioning here.

Christians need to understand and act upon these biblical ideals. While this article hardly provides the last word on the subject, we ignore the lessons of the Bible and history to the peril of our freedoms. Evil ever advances upon our families, churches, and states. Evil seeks positions of power, such as government, and from there seeks to eliminate the avenues of power that threaten it (an armed people). Thus tyrannical government seek to pass gun control laws. Wise Christians see past the propaganda and stand for freedom.

With relentless expression of our rights through education, publication, exercising the right, and challenging unjust laws, Christians can at least create a society hungrier for freedom. At best we may roll back the various infringements upon those freedoms. If we change the laws well enough, we may indeed once again hear pastor say, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
Endnotes:

1. Francis Grose, Military Antiquities Respecting a History of the British Army, from the Conquest to the Present Time, 2 vol. (London: Egerton and Kearsley, 1801), 1:1. [↩]
2. Francis Grose, Military Antiquities, 1:2. [↩]
3. William Brigham, ed., The Compact with the Charter and Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1836), 31. [↩]
4. William Hening, The Statutes at Large: Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia from the First Session of the Legislature in 1619, (New York, 1823), 173–174, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol01-07.htm (accessed April 22, 2010); I have modernized the English taken from this work. [↩]
5. William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol01-07.htm (accessed April 22, 2010). [↩]
6. William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol01-07.htm (accessed April 22, 2010). [↩]
7. William Hening, The Statutes at Large, 174–175, http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol01-07.htm (accessed April 22, 2010). [↩]
8. Louis B. Wright, “The Westward Advance of the Atlantic Frontier,” The Huntingdon Library Quarterly 11/3 (May 1948): 271 [↩]
9. William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vol., 1:139. [↩]
10. Two Treatises on Civil Government, Book II, Chapter II, Sec. 6. [1689], http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/loc-202.htm (accessed April 22, 2010). [↩]

Obama's 'Constitution'

2010-04-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

Obama and the Constitution
Submitted by Bob Beauprez on April 20, 2010

You have to give Barack Obama credit for at least one thing; he sure knows how to get people fired up.

Across America citizens by the tens of thousands rallied at Tea Party events last week against a government out of control and politicians who refuse to listen. Many pointed to a trampling of civil liberties and the Constitution.

Obama’s hostility and disdain for the Constitution, which he laments as a “charter of negative liberties,” is well established. When Obama pledged “to bring about the change that won't just win an election, but will transform America,” he apparently had transforming the Law of the Land squarely in his sights. His actions in only the first year in office are an alarming and unprecedented assault that must have shaken the Framers of the Constitution in their eternal resting places.

Indeed, more than a dozen state Attorneys General along with private organizations have filed suit against the federal government claiming the recently passed ObamaCare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), is unconstitutional by mandating every citizen purchase a commercial product, even one as important as health insurance. The AGs raise the right questions citing Article 1, Section 8 that specifically prescribes Congressional limited authorities, and the Tenth Amendment that reserves “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

"The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage," the lawsuit reads.

Obama caused another flare up by ignoring the Senate’s Advice and Consent Authority in Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution with 15 Easter week recess appointments to federal positions. For sure, other Presidents of both parties have made scores of recess appointments in the past. But one of Obama’s pushed the limit.

Most flagrant was the appointment of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker’s nomination “died…in the Senate” when it fell eight votes short of passing cloture in February. But, Obama ignored the Senate action as provided for in the Constitution and forced Becker on the NRLB anyway. Becker is an attorney for the AFL-CIO and SEIU and ardent advocate of doing away with secret ballot elections (Card Check) as currently required by law to organize workers into a labor union. Recognizing the reality that Congress likely cannot pass Card Check legislation, the unions have advocated it be done through the “administrative process” – i.e. by changing the regulation by bureaucratic fiat, essentially deeming a change in the law without ever voting on it – and Becker is likely their designated bureaucrat to get it done.

Just two months into his new job, Obama fired the management at General Motors, a private corporation. He moved swiftly to install his own puppets, confiscate the equity of secured creditors, and redistribute it to labor unions and the government. He did all of this without any identifiable authority in the Constitution or in statutes, no vote from Congress, nor an order from any Court. He just did it – a frightening precedent to establish in the United States of America.

The recent announcement that Justice John Paul Stevens plans to retire this summer will give Obama his second appointment to the Supreme Court. With his first nominee to the SCOTUS, Obama selected a well documented activist judge, Sonia Sotomayor, who arrogantly rejected the Constitutional separation of powers and publicly bragged that “the Court is where policy is made.” Speculation around Obama’s next nominee has largely focused on “how far left” he will go with his selection. It’s a given that his pick will be from the liberal edge of possibilities. Two high profile liberal women are often mentioned, Elena Kagan and Diana Wood. Regardless of who is ultimately selected, it is a foregone conclusion that the nominee will “indulge their own liberal values by deeming what the law is,” rather than applying the Constitution as written.

How do we know? Because, Obama said so.

In a 2001 Chicago public radio interview, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama provided great insight to the frustration and low regard that the man who would become President had even then for the Constitution. Referencing the Earl Warren Supreme Court of the 1950-60s, widely regarded as the most liberal and activist Court in the nation’s history, Obama said “it wasn’t that radical.” He lamented the Warren Court, “didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.”

Obama might not have thought the Warren Court pushed the envelope, but President Eisenhower sure did. The activism of that Court caused Ike, who nominated Warren, to reflect on that decision as “the biggest damned-fool mistake I ever made.”

The Warren Court according to Obama, “never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.” Flying directly in the face of the Founders, and particularly the vision embodied in The Federalist Papers, Obama decried the Constitution as, “a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”

Obama’s vision of what government “must do” is centered on what he called even in 2001 “redistributed change.” Even an activist court isn’t sufficiently aggressive for Obama. “The Court’s just not very good at it (redistributed change),” he said. While important in Obama’s overall strategy, he recognizes it is but one of many members in “coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change.”

While we await the name Obama’s next SCOTUS nominee, rest assured they will share his vision and be pledged to further his assault on free-market capitalism in America and our fundamental liberties. Look no further than the closing statement of that radio interview in which he speaks of “bringing about economic change through the courts.” That is the transformation of America – the “change” - of which he spoke.

As if to put an exclamation point on his 2001 interview, Presidential candidate Obama said this six years later during the Presidential campaign when asked about his criteria for judicial nominees:

"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
Barack Obama: Planned Parenthood Conference, July 17, 2007

Caring for the needy and the disenfranchised, and government’s proper roll, has occupied countless hours of debate within Congress since the nation’s founding. The generosity and benevolence of America for our own as well as countless millions around the world is unprecedented in world history. Some will forever believe we still come up short, while others are convinced we spend and waste too much. Regardless, the Founders clearly established that “all men are created equal” and thus entitled to equal opportunity and treatment – but, not necessarily equal outcome. Protection of equal treatment is principally within the jurisdiction of the courts, while the legislature will forever tug and push at outcomes.

Obama has embraced the “living constitution” ideology of the radical left who don’t like rules, or legal constraints, or limits on government intrusion into our lives and our freedom as envisioned by our Founders. Instead of the wisdom of Hancock, Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams who believed that, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” Obama is more closely aligned with a form of government that denies individual liberty and freedom, centralizes power within the institutions of government rather than the people, confiscates and redistributes personal wealth and property, and is founded on the one fundamental principal of believers in redistributive change; “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Mr. President, there are places in the world where tyrannical governments imposes that dictum on fearful people. But, it is not the United States of America.

Obama’s Supreme Court Short List Falls Short

2010-04-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

Obama’s Supreme Court Short List

Elena Kagan stepped down as dean of Harvard Law School to become solicitor general. Like Obama, she has her law degree from Harvard and taught at the University of Chicago.

The Daily Caller reports about Kagan's extremist views:

"Kagan's boldest foray into public life was, as dean of Harvard Law School, throwing the military off campus over its 'don't ask, don't tell' policy on gay soldiers. Kagan called the policy, implemented by her former boss President Bill Clinton, 'a profound wrong — a moral injustice of the first order.' She pursued the matter all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices unanimously slapped down her arguments, forcing Harvard to allow the military to return....

"On the Defense of Marriage Act, Kagan damned with faint praise — she defended the law, but not without first saying the Obama administration opposed it, thought it was discriminatory and hoped to overturn it. Pro-homosexual marriage lawyer Dale Carpenter wrote the move was a 'gift to the gay-marriage movement' because the administration was 'helping knock out a leg from under the opposition to gay marriage.'...

"Long ago, Kagan wrote a memo while clerking for the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall that said religious organizations that provide care for teen pregnancies shouldn't get federal funds because of a strict line separating church and state."

Needless to say, Kagan is a bomb-thrower, who would rule as a pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, anti-Christian activist, and she must be filibustered if nominated.

Diane Wood is an appeals court judge in Chicago who has worked at the State Department, the Justice Department and in private practice. Like Obama, she taught at the University of Chicago Law School.

Kagan and Wood appear to be the most hostile toward pro-life Judeo Christian views.

LifeSiteNews.com reports about Wood:

Diane Wood is considered a leading liberal justice in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and is considered a radical supporter of legalized abortion. After graduating with her law degree in 1975, Wood clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the Roe v. Wade decision.

Wood went on to author the decision of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in the case National Organization for Women v. Scheidler, in which she sided with NOW's attempt to silence Scheidler, the Pro-Life Action Network, and Operation Rescue, extract large monetary damages, and prevent them from protesting at abortion clinics. Wood's decision was unanimously overturned by the Supreme Court in 2006.

Wood also wrote a dissenting opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Walker, in which she disagreed with the majority opinion that Southern Illinois University was wrong to revoke official student group status of a CLS chapter because it required its members to be Christian.

Again, Wood is a bomb-thrower, who will rule as a pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, anti-Christian activist, and must be filibustered if nominated.

Merrick Garland, of the federal appeals court in Washington, is a former high-ranking Justice Department official.

Ed Whelan of The National Review said, "I have zero illusions that a Justice Garland would help move the Court in the right direction in undoing the damage of decades of liberal judicial activism. I merely have reasonable hopes that he'd move more slowly than the other leading candidates in compounding the damage...For what it's worth, I'd bet my bottom dollar that Garland would vote to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare, including the individual mandate." And yet, of the candidates that President Obama might plausibly nominate to the Court, "all the others strike me as markedly worse than Garland," Whelan wrote.

Janet Napolitano, the homeland security chief, is a former Arizona governor and a former federal prosecutor.

LifeSiteNews.com already reports wide-spread opposition by pro-lifers to her nomination.

"Secretary Napolitano has already won notoriety among the pro-life community for labeling opposition to abortion as a warning sign of violent "rightwing extremism." A Homeland Security report detailing such "rightwing extremism" as characterized by pro-life and other normative conservative values was eventually pulled after an uproar ensued...

"As governor of Arizona prior to her cabinet appointment, Napolitano was known as an extreme abortion supporter, having vetoed several pro-life bills, including a ban on partial-birth abortion and a bill protecting the conscience rights of pharmacists."

Leah Ward Sears, the first black female to serve as the chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, is now in private practice after a long career on the bench.

Lifenews.com reports:

Sears would give Obama the distinction of appointing the first "black woman" Supreme Court Justice -- "an important distinction for a nation that puts so much stock into identity politics."

However, Sears would receive opposition from pro-life groups because she is a member of the left-leaning American Constitution Society.

Americans United for Life (AUL) highlighted Sears when she made the short list of potential Supreme Court appointments last year, though Obama ultimately went with pro-abortion Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Sears has not issued any known decision on life-related issues, but AUL indicates "Sears has evidenced a broad conception of substantive constitutional privacy -- the very basis upon which Roe v. Wade is predicated."

Sears has "referred to the responsibility of courts to protect constitutional rights against 'morals legislation' the majority," AUL notes, which concerns it regarding abortion issues.

Sidney Thomas, a Montana lawyer who now sits on the extremist 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the most liberal of all 13 appeals courts in the nation, is not only a judicial activist, but according to Ed Whelan of The National Review, "Thomas is on the far Left of that far-Left court." He is certainly worthy of vociferous opposition and filibuster.

Jennifer Granholm, the Michigan governor and former federal prosecutor and Michigan attorney general, is not a good choice.

Granholm's political experience might be attractive, but her chances are hurt by her "controversial tenure" as governor during Michigan's economic hard times, said Larry Sabato, director at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

"Let's face it; she's not one of the more popular governors," Sabato said.

"I don't see why it would make sense politically or legally" to nominate Granholm, said Brian Kalt, an associate law professor at Michigan State University, expressing concerns about Granholm's liberal political background, in an interview with The Free Press.

Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record

2010-04-14T10:01:00.000-07:00

You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As you read this, 39 years later, you should be shocked by the events that have played themselves out. I first ran across this list 3 years ago but was unable to attain a copy and it has bothered me ever since. Recently, Jeff Rense posted it on his site and I would like to thank him for doing so. http://www.rense.com

Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963 .

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Sources at end.

In the early hours of November 22nd (1963) we learned of the quiet passing of C.S. Lewis and hours later we were brought to our knees when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated and our nation mourned.

On June 17, 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that any Bible reciting or prayer, in public schools, was deemed unconstitutional.

While American's have endured great prosperity over the past 40 years we have also lost our moral compass and direction. In reviewing the research, data supports 1963 as a focal point, demonstrating a downward slope in our moral and social decline through 2001.

Sources:

Note by Webmaster: The Congressional Record back this far (2001) has not be digitized and posted on the Internet.

It will probably be available at your nearest library that is a federal repository. Call them and ask them. Your college library is probably a repository. This is an excellent source of government records. Another source are your Congress Critters. They should be more than happy to help you in this matter. You will find the Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto interesting at this point.

Webmaster Forest Glen Durland found the document in the library.

Sources are listed below.

Microfilm: California State University at San Jose Clark Library, Government Floor Phone (408)924-2770 Microfilm Call Number: J 11.R5

Congressional Record, Vol. 109 88th Congress, 1st Session Appendix Pages A1-A2842 Jan. 9-May 7, 1963 Reel 12

1963- The Year That Changed America

Enviro Wacos Are Coming For You

2010-04-13T08:21:00.000-07:00

Is 'Green Goon Squad' at your front door?

Just when you thought the government couldn't get any more invasive than the 2010 Census and requirements under "Obamacare" that your medical records be posted on the Internet, a coming book called "Climategate" by veteran meteorologist Brian Sussman warns that soon there could be a "green goon squad" visiting at your door.

Sussman's book, the newest title by WND books and scheduled for release April 22 "Earth Day," has been charting for several weeks already among Amazon's top 10 preordered titles. It arrives just as people who thought the campaign over global warming was being dropped over revelations of apparent manipulation by researchers in the field are becoming concerned that Washington still has it on the fast-track.

Sussman writes in "Climategate" that not only are promoters of the belief that starting a car in Texas or heating a home in North Dakota contributes to a cataclysmic environmental warping are continuing their campaign, Washington already has parts of it in writing.

In Chapter 10 of his book, he cites the 2009 America Clean Energy and Security Act which already has passed the U.S. House.

"Buried in the 2009 America Clean Energy and Security Act are federally mandated energy-efficient building regulations, which supersede all local and state codes and which will be enforced by a national, green goon squad, funded in part by revenues from energy taxes, as well as by an annual $25 million from the Department of Energy 'to provide necessary enforcement of a national energy efficiency building code,'" he confirms.

"The legislation also authorizes the Secretary of Energy to 'enhance compliance by conducting training and education of builders and other professionals in the jurisdiction concerning the national energy efficiency building code.'

"The plan is modeled on building code enforcement in California. Each time a home is built, remodeled, or – in the case of the federal plan – preparing to be sold, a G-man wearing a federal badge and armed with a clipboard will show up at your house to make sure ... all of your appliances have been updated with the most recent Energy Star-approved internal communication devices, and that the Home Area Network has been properly installed and connected to your new SmartMeter, whether you like it or not," he says.

Be the first to see the full documentation of how your life could be changed by climate-related laws, taxes and regulations, in "Climategate"

"This is not a helpful plan to assist you in meeting your family budget; it's a social engineering scheme, designed and promoted by the federal government to change your behavior," he said. "By having the capability to read your meter many times a day, the utility company is able to effectively establish demand pricing schedules; thus, using too much electricity during the peak periods is going to cost you."

Further, he writes, part of the Big Brother spy system actually already is embedded in the law..

"The term SmartGrid [made law in 2007] refers to a distribution system that allows for flow of information from a customer's meter in two directions: both inside the house to thermostats and appliances and other devices, and back to the utility. … Once the…SmartMeter [is] connected to the SmartGrid, Big Brother will become the new authority figure in your home. Want to do a load of laundry or read at 3 p.m. on a hot afternoon in August? Good luck. With a bureaucratic keystroke, anything attached to your [home] could be selectively turned off – or on – without your approval."

The book details, among other things, the warping of the scientific process over global warming, the massive enrichment of its supporters, President Obama's early and continuing support and the anti-American roots of environmental alarmism.

Sussman, formerly a highly acclaimed San Francisco meteorologist, also is the newest morning host at KSFO Radio (560 AM), the highest-rated talk show in the San Francisco Bay Area and the fourth-largest radio market in the country.

In the original scandal that spawned the name Climategate, the hacked e-mails of Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit in Norwich, England, and others uncovered schemes to employ "tricks" with warming trends, squelch skeptics and defame journals that published them.

But Sussman reveals that Jones' work at the University of East Anglia wasn't alone in its apparent manipulation of research. He charges that James Hansen, director at NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, has treated his position as "activist-scientist."

Hansen is quoted in the book with the opinion, "We're leaving a situation for our children and grandchildren which is not of their making, but they're going to suffer because of it. So I think they should start to act up and put some pressure on their elders, and on legislatures, and begin to get some action."

Probably the most visible alarmist over global warming has been former vice president Al Gore, who reportedly has made tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars for himself. Sussman notes that Gore has said "our grandchildren would one day look back on us as a criminal generation that had selfishly and blithely ignored clear warnings that their fate was in our hands."

Sussman even documents how Obama, as a board member for the Joyce Foundation, voted for a $1.1 million grant to launch a privately owned "Chicago Climate Exchange."

Sussman warns it never has been about weather; it's about control of Americans and everything they do.

"It’s obvious to everyone that this global-warming facade is in meltdown mode," said Joseph Farah, publisher of WND Books and founder and CEO of WorldNetDaily.com. "Now Brian's important book comes along just in time to reveal exactly why this Big Lie was foisted on us – and what we can do to stop it cold."

Earth Day is all the evidence of deception needed, said Sussman. First celebrated in 1970 on the 100th anniversary of the birth of communist leader Vladimir Lenin, it was founded by Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis.; former Stanford student body president Denis Hayes; and author and Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich.

"Lenin's core political philosophy was linked at the hip with these newly fangled environmentalists who maintained that America's government must be altered, its economy planned and regulated, and its citizens better controlled," writes Sussman. "The environment would be the perfect tool to force these changes, and the most efficient way to gain converts would be through the public school system – the earlier the better."

In one of Obama's first acts during his reign, he pushed for the 2009 "Stimulus Bill," which allows $20 billion for programs relating to energy efficiency. $16 billion for weatherization of private home and $11 billion for "modernizing the nation's power grid."

Among WND's previous reports on the global warming dispute was when Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Joe Barton, R-Texas, cited doubts about the integrity of "climate change" science when he wrote a letter demanding an accounting of U.S. taxpayer support for the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC.

The controversy exploded late last year when a series of e-mails was hacked from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain that indicate scientists were hiding and manipulating data and trying to marginalize critics.

The revelations were significant, because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed two findings Dec. 7 that concluded greenhouse gases in the atmosphere "threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations." The EPA's rulings could mean thousands of dollars in additional taxes for individual consumers.

As the allegations of fraud expanded, Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., has suggested the Justice Department investigate scientists for potentially falsifying data.

The Orange County Register has posted a chart for consumers to try to keep up with all the scandals developing in the "global warming" community.

Among the scandals listed are:

* ClimateGate: The scandal over the CRU e-mails from East Anglia.

* FOIGate: In which British officials are investigating whether East Anglia scientists refused to follow that nation's freedom of information law about their work.

* ChinaGate: In which dozens of weather monitoring stations in rural China apparently have simply disappeared. This would lead to higher temperature averages since city levels frequently are warmer.

* HimalayaGate: In which an Indian climate official admitted in January that he falsely claimed Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035 to prod governments into action.

* And PachauriGates I and II, SternGates I and II, AmazonGate (in which a claim that global warming would wipe out rain forests was exposed as a fraud), PeerReviewGate, RussianGate I and II and nearly a dozen others.

WND also reported recently when the St. Louis-based Peabody Energy, the largest private coal company in the world, petitioned the EPA to re-examine its decisions in light of the controversy over the scientists' e-mails.

The company noted the "seriousness of the flaws" in the work.

Given the EPA's "extensive reliance" on those reports, "the "agency has no legal option but to re-examine the Endangerment Finding in light of this new information," the petition said.

On its website, the company said the EPA's earlier ruling "could mean regulation of hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of buildings, farms, businesses and other facilities in the U.S."

Texas officials also have filed a lawsuit accusing the federal government of using "tainted" information to arrive at the EPA conclusion and it asks that the EPA's decisions be set aside. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, also filed a petition demanding the EPA reconsider its greenhouse gas finding.

The scientific community actually is anything but unanimous on climate change.

The disunity is documented by the Petition Project, launched some 10 years ago when the first few thousand signatures were gathered. The effort by Art Robinson, a research professor of chemistry and cofounder of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine in 1973, now lists tens of thousands of qualified scientists who endorse the following statement:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Among the original e-mails hacked from East Anglia and posted online was, "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."

Get Rid Of Activist Judges

2010-04-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

Good Riddance!
by Thomas Sowell

When Supreme Court Justices retire, there is usually some pious talk about their "service," especially when it has been a long "service." But the careers of all too many of these retiring jurists, including currently retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, have been an enormous disservice to this country.

Justice Stevens was on the High Court for 35 years-- more's the pity, or the disgrace. Justice Stevens voted to sustain racial quotas, created "rights" out of thin air for terrorists, and took away American citizens' rights to their own homes in the infamous "Kelo" decision of 2005.

The Constitution of the United States says that the government must pay "just compensation" for seizing a citizen's private property for "public use." In other words, if the government has to build a reservoir or bridge, and your property is in the way, they can take that property, provided that they pay you its value.

What has happened over the years, however, is that judges have eroded this protection and expanded the government's power-- as they have in other issues. This trend reached its logical extreme in the Supreme Court case of Kelo v. City of New London. This case involved local government officials seizing homes and businesses-- not for "public use" as the Constitution specified, but to turn this private property over to other private parties, to build more upscale facilities that would bring in more tax revenues.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the Supreme Court opinion that expanded the Constitution's authorization of seizing private property for "public use" to seizing private property for a "public purpose." And who would define what a "public purpose" is? Basically, those who were doing the seizing. As Justice Stevens put it, the government authorities' assessment of a proper "public purpose" was entitled to "great respect" by the courts.

Let's go back to square one. Just who was this provision of the Constitution supposed to restrict? Answer: government officials. And to whom would Justice Stevens defer: government officials. Why would those who wrote the Constitution waste good ink putting that protection in there, if not to protect citizens from the very government officials to whom Justice Stevens deferred?

John Paul Stevens is a classic example of what has been wrong with too many Republicans' appointments to the Supreme Court. The biggest argument in favor of nominating him was that he could be confirmed by the Senate without a fight.

Democratic presidents appoint judges who will push their political agenda from the federal bench, even if that requires stretching and twisting the Constitution to reach their goals.

Republicans too often appoint judges whose confirmation will not require a big fight with the Democrats. You can always avoid a fight by surrendering, and a whole wing of the Republican party has long ago mastered the art of preemptive surrender.

The net result has been a whole string of Republican Justices of the Supreme Court carrying out the Democrats' agenda, in disregard of the Constitution. John Paul Stevens has been just one.

There may have been some excuse for President Ford's picking such a man, in order to avoid a fight, at a time when he was an unelected President who came into office in the wake of Richard Nixon's resignation in disgrace after Watergate, creating lasting damage to the public's support of the Republicans.

But there was no such excuse for the elder President Bush to appoint David Souter, much less for President Eisenhower, with back-to-back landslide victories at the polls, to inflict William J. Brennan on the country.

In light of these justices' records, and in view of how long justices remain on the court, nominating such people was close to criminal negligence.

If and when the Republicans return to power in Washington, we can only hope that they remember what got them suddenly and unceremoniously dumped out of power the last time. Basically, it was running as Republicans and then governing as if they were Democrats, running up big deficits, with lots of earmarks and interfering with the market.

But their most lasting damage to the country has been putting people like John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court.

Send the Muslims back Home

2010-04-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

Time to restrict Muslim immigration to U.S., send them back home

Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels spent hundreds of hours counseling Muslim youth in Danish prisons, and shared what he learned about Muslim culture in a recently published book, Among Criminal Muslims: A Psychologist's Experience from Copenhagen. An astonishing 70 percent of the prison population in the Copenhagen youth prison are men of Muslim heritage.

The Danes spend 300,000 euros ($400,000 U.S.) a year on social problems created by Muslim immigrants. It would be a far better use of those funds, he argues, to use them to send Muslim immigrants back to countries which share their fundamental values, where perhaps they can serve as ambassadors for more free and democratic societies in their countries of origin by taking with them some of the ideas and ideals they observed in the West.

Sennels recounts some of the sobering lessons he learned about Islam in an interview with EuropeNews, which you can read here.

His sobering conclusion, with which I agree: the integration of Muslims into Western societies is "impossible."

It's time, he says, to "immediately stop all immigration of people from Muslim countries to Europe until we have proven that integration of Muslims is possible."

And secondly, he believes that we should help current Muslim immigrants "build a new and meaningful life in a society that they understand and that understands them." This means, he says, "to assist them in starting a new life in a Muslim country."

Here are the takeaways for the United States. First, the most compassionate thing we can do for Americans is to bring a halt to the immigration of Muslims into the U.S. This will protect our national security and preserve our national identity, culture, ideals and values. Muslims, by custom and religion, are simply unwilling to integrate into cultures with Western values and it is folly to pretend otherwise. In fact, they remain dedicated to subjecting all of America to sharia law and are working ceaselessly until that day of Islamic imposition comes.

The most compassionate thing we can do for Muslims who have already immigrated here is to help repatriate them back to Muslim countries, where they can live in a culture which shares their values, a place where they can once again be at home, surrounded by people who cherish their deeply held ideals. Why force them to chafe against the freedom, liberty and civil rights we cherish in the West?

In other words, simple Judeo-Christian compassion dictates a restriction and repatriation policy with regard to Muslim immigration into the U.S.

Sennels explodes several myths of Muslim integration along the way.

First, he points out that there is a vast difference in cultural background between those who grow up in a Muslim culture and those who grow up in a culture whose values have been shaped by Christianity. There is, he says, "extremely disproportional anti-social and anti-democratic behavior among Muslims." The Danish Bureau of Statistics discovered that Muslim countries take the first eight places on the top-10 list of criminals' country of origin. Denmark - the home country - comes in number nine on its own list.

Second, he concludes that Muslim criminality is caused by Islam or "Muslim culture" rather than by social problems in the countries to which they immigrate.

For example, a sudden explosion of anger is something that causes shame in a culture shaped by Christianity. But in Islam, it is exactly the opposite. If a man's honor is offended in some way, a Muslim is "simply expected to show aggression and often also verbal or physical revenge." So while anger lowers your status in a place like America, it elevates your status in a Muslim subculture.

Even more telling is the strong identification Muslims have with Muslim culture, an identification that supersedes any affiliation with their new country. In Germany, for instance, only 12 percent of Muslims see themselves as more German than Muslim, while in France and Denmark, only 14 percent of Muslims see themselves as more French or Danish than Muslim.

Chillingly, Sennels discovered that prolonged exposure to Western culture doesn't mitigate this as we might hope. There are "no differences of opinion...among Muslims who are born and raised in Muslim countries and the opinion of their children who are born and raised in Danish society."

Thus Muslim ghettos are nurturing "a powerful and growing opposition to Western culture and values."

The third myth he explodes is that the percentage of Muslims with extremist views is small. His experience, in the wake of the deadly riots by young Muslims in 2008, is quite different. Muslims who did not practice the Islamic religion in their daily lives lit fires and attacked the police, and justified it on the grounds that Danish society, by reprinting the Mohammed cartoons, had "proven itself to be racist and against Islam and Muslim culture."

The fourth myth he explodes is that it is poverty among immigrants which leads to social problems. In reality, he says, it's exactly the reverse. It is the social problems they create for themselves that lead to poverty. He discovered that among most Muslims there is a "very low focus on supporting one's children in school and on one's own education," and a lack of motivation for creating a professional career. All this combines to produce endemic poverty among Muslim immigrants. In a word, what is missing is the Protestant work ethic. And that is because, well, they're not Protestants.

Sennels concludes that "there is no research in Europe" that supports the view the Muslim integration is even attainable. "[F]or the largest part integration...of Muslims is not possible." those who argue otherwise are not "bas(ing) their judgment on facts."

The overarching explanation for the virtual impossibility of Muslim assimilation is that "[t]he Muslim and the Western cultures are fundamentally very different." Muslims, in his extensive experience, are either incapable or unwilling to make the changes in basic personality structure that are necessary. Those that do undergo a "long and exhaustive struggle" internally and "often pay a high personal price on the outer level" (think Rifqa Bary here) "because their Muslim friends and families despise and/or disown them for leaving their culture."

It's often been observed that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. We are watching a dismal historical experiment in uncontrolled Islamic immigration unfold before our very eyes in Europe, and watching European culture disintegrate before our very eyes. Let's learn - and apply - the lessons from Europe. If we do not, it may soon be too late to save what is left of American culture.

Preserve the Union

2010-03-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Federalist No. 16: The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union
by The Federalist Papers

THE tendency of the principle of legislation for States, or communities, in their political capacities, as it has been exemplified by the experiment we have made of it, is equally attested by the events which have befallen all other governments of the confederate kind, of which we have any account, in exact proportion to its prevalence in those systems. The confirmations of this fact will be worthy of a distinct and particular examination. I shall content myself with barely observing here, that of all the confederacies of antiquity, which history has handed down to us, the Lycian and Achaean leagues, as far as there remain vestiges of them, appear to have been most free from the fetters of that mistaken principle, and were accordingly those which have best deserved, and have most liberally received, the applauding suffrages of political writers.

This exceptionable principle may, as truly as emphatically, be styled the parent of anarchy: It has been seen that delinquencies in the members of the Union are its natural and necessary offspring; and that whenever they happen, the only constitutional remedy is force, and the immediate effect of the use of it, civil war.

It remains to inquire how far so odious an engine of government, in its application to us, would even be capable of answering its end. If there should not be a large army constantly at the disposal of the national government it would either not be able to employ force at all, or, when this could be done, it would amount to a war between parts of the Confederacy concerning the infractions of a league, in which the strongest combination would be most likely to prevail, whether it consisted of those who supported or of those who resisted the general authority. It would rarely happen that the delinquency to be redressed would be confined to a single member, and if there were more than one who had neglected their duty, similarity of situation would induce them to unite for common defense. Independent of this motive of sympathy, if a large and influential State should happen to be the aggressing member, it would commonly have weight enough with its neighbors to win over some of them as associates to its cause. Specious arguments of danger to the common liberty could easily be contrived; plausible excuses for the deficiencies of the party could, without difficulty, be invented to alarm the apprehensions, inflame the passions, and conciliate the good-will, even of those States which were not chargeable with any violation or omission of duty. This would be the more likely to take place, as the delinquencies of the larger members might be expected sometimes to proceed from an ambitious premeditation in their rulers, with a view to getting rid of all external control upon their designs of personal aggrandizement; the better to effect which it is presumable they would tamper beforehand with leading individuals in the adjacent States. If associates could not be found at home, recourse would be had to the aid of foreign powers, who would seldom be disinclined to encouraging the dissensions of a Confederacy, from the firm union of which they had so much to fear. When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. The suggestions of wounded pride, the instigations of irritated resentment, would be apt to carry the States against which the arms of the Union were exerted, to any extremes necessary to avenge the affront or to avoid the disgrace of submission. The first war of this kind would probably terminate in a dissolution of the Union.

This may be considered as the violent death of the Confederacy. Its more natural death is what we now seem to be on the point of experiencing, if the federal system be not speedily renovated in a more substantial form. It is not probable, considering the genius of this country, that the complying States would often be inclined to support the authority of the Union by engaging in a war against the non-complying States. They would always be more ready to pursue the milder course of putting themselves upon an equal footing with the delinquent members by an imitation of their example. And the guilt of all would thus become the security of all. Our past experience has exhibited the operation of this spirit in its full light. There would, in fact, be an insuperable difficulty in ascertaining when force could with propriety be employed. In the article of pecuniary contribution, which would be the most usual source of delinquency, it would often be impossible to decide whether it had proceeded from disinclination or inability. The pretense of the latter would always be at hand. And the case must be very flagrant in which its fallacy could be detected with sufficient certainty to justify the harsh expedient of compulsion. It is easy to see that this problem alone, as often as it should occur, would open a wide field for the exercise of factious views, of partiality, and of oppression, in the majority that happened to prevail in the national council.

It seems to require no pains to prove that the States ought not to prefer a national Constitution which could only be kept in motion by the instrumentality of a large army continually on foot to execute the ordinary requisitions or decrees of the government. And yet this is the plain alternative involved by those who wish to deny it the power of extending its operations to individuals. Such a scheme, if practicable at all, would instantly degenerate into a military despotism; but it will be found in every light impracticable. The resources of the Union would not be equal to the maintenance of an army considerable enough to confine the larger States within the limits of their duty; nor would the means ever be furnished of forming such an army in the first instance. Whoever considers the populousness and strength of several of these States singly at the present juncture, and looks forward to what they will become, even at the distance of half a century, will at once dismiss as idle and visionary any scheme which aims at regulating their movements by laws to operate upon them in their collective capacities, and to be executed by a coercion applicable to them in the same capacities. A project of this kind is little less romantic than the monster-taming spirit which is attributed to the fabulous heroes and demi-gods of antiquity.

Even in those confederacies which have been composed of members smaller than many of our counties, the principle of legislation for sovereign States, supported by military coercion, has never been found effectual. It has rarely been attempted to be employed, but against the weaker members; and in most instances attempts to coerce the refractory and disobedient have been the signals of bloody wars, in which one half of the confederacy has displayed its banners against the other half.

The result of these observations to an intelligent mind must be clearly this, that if it be possible at any rate to construct a federal government capable of regulating the common concerns and preserving the general tranquillity, it must be founded, as to the objects committed to its care, upon the reverse of the principle contended for by the opponents of the proposed Constitution. It must carry its agency to the persons of the citizens. It must stand in need of no intermediate legislations; but must itself be empowered to employ the arm of the ordinary magistrate to execute its own resolutions. The majesty of the national authority must be manifested through the medium of the courts of justice. The government of the Union, like that of each State, must be able to address itself immediately to the hopes and fears of individuals; and to attract to its support those passions which have the strongest influence upon the human heart. It must, in short, possess all the means, and have aright to resort to all the methods, of executing the powers with which it is intrusted, that are possessed and exercised by the government of the particular States.

To this reasoning it may perhaps be objected, that if any State should be disaffected to the authority of the Union, it could at any time obstruct the execution of its laws, and bring the matter to the same issue of force, with the necessity of which the opposite scheme is reproached.

The pausibility of this objection will vanish the moment we advert to the essential difference between a mere NON-COMPLIANCE and a DIRECT and ACTIVE RESISTANCE. If the interposition of the State legislatures be necessary to give effect to a measure of the Union, they have only NOT TO ACT, or TO ACT EVASIVELY, and the measure is defeated. This neglect of duty may be disguised under affected but unsubstantial provisions, so as not to appear, and of course not to excite any alarm in the people for the safety of the Constitution. The State leaders may even make a merit of their surreptitious invasions of it on the ground of some temporary convenience, exemption, or advantage.

But if the execution of the laws of the national government should not require the intervention of the State legislatures, if they were to pass into immediate operation upon the citizens themselves, the particular governments could not interrupt their progress without an open and violent exertion of an unconstitutional power. No omissions nor evasions would answer the end. They would be obliged to act, and in such a manner as would leave no doubt that they had encroached on the national rights. An experiment of this nature would always be hazardous in the face of a constitution in any degree competent to its own defense, and of a people enlightened enough to distinguish between a legal exercise and an illegal usurpation of authority. The success of it would require not merely a factious majority in the legislature, but the concurrence of the courts of justice and of the body of the people. If the judges were not embarked in a conspiracy with the legislature, they would pronounce the resolutions of such a majority to be contrary to the supreme law of the land, unconstitutional, and void. If the people were not tainted with the spirit of their State representatives, they, as the natural guardians of the Constitution, would throw their weight into the national scale and give it a decided preponderancy in the contest. Attempts of this kind would not often be made with levity or rashness, because they could seldom be made without danger to the authors, unless in cases of a tyrannical exercise of the federal authority.

If opposition to the national government should arise from the disorderly conduct of refractory or seditious individuals, it could be overcome by the same means which are daily employed against the same evil under the State governments. The magistracy, being equally the ministers of the law of the land, from whatever source it might emanate, would doubtless be as ready to guard the national as the local regulations from the inroads of private licentiousness. As to those partial commotions and insurrections, which sometimes disquiet society, from the intrigues of an inconsiderable faction, or from sudden or occasional illhumors that do not infect the great body of the community the general government could command more extensive resources for the suppression of disturbances of that kind than would be in the power of any single member. And as to those mortal feuds which, in certain conjunctures, spread a conflagration through a whole nation, or through a very large proportion of it, proceeding either from weighty causes of discontent given by the government or from the contagion of some violent popular paroxysm, they do not fall within any ordinary rules of calculation. When they happen, they commonly amount to revolutions and dismemberments of empire. No form of government can always either avoid or control them. It is in vain to hope to guard against events too mighty for human foresight or precaution, and it would be idle to object to a government because it could not perform impossibilities.

PUBLIUS

Tax on Tax

2010-03-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Obamacare's next trick: the VAT
By Charles Krauthammer

With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

We are now $8 trillion in debt. The Congressional Budget Office projects that $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. Obamacare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks -- the unfunded $200 billion-plus "doctor fix," the double counting of Medicare cuts, the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only six years of outflows) -- is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement.

It will vastly increase the debt. But even if it were revenue-neutral, Obamacare preempts and appropriates for itself the best and easiest means of reducing the existing deficit. Obamacare's $500 billion of cuts in Medicare and $600 billion in tax hikes are no longer available for deficit reduction. They are siphoned off for the new entitlement of insuring the uninsured.

This is fiscally disastrous because, as President Obama himself explained last year in unveiling his grand transformational policies, our unsustainable fiscal path requires control of entitlement spending, the most ruinous of which is out-of-control health-care costs.

Obamacare was sold on the premise that, as Nancy Pelosi put it, "health-care reform is entitlement reform. Our budget cannot take this upward spiral of cost." But the bill enacted on Tuesday accelerates the spiral: It radically expands Medicaid (adding 15 million recipients/dependents) and shamelessly raids Medicare by spending on a new entitlement the $500 billion in cuts and the yield from the Medicare tax hikes.

Obama knows that the debt bomb is looming, that Moody's is warning that the Treasury's AAA rating is in jeopardy, that we are headed for a run on the dollar and/or hyperinflation if nothing is done.

Hence his deficit-reduction commission. It will report (surprise!) after the November elections.

What will it recommend? What can it recommend? Sure, Social Security can be trimmed by raising the retirement age, introducing means testing and changing the indexing formula from wage growth to price inflation.

But this won't be nearly enough. As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health-care costs -- which are locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates.

That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue. Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion).

It's the ultimate cash cow. Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive. Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent.

American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation.

Obama set out to be a consequential president, on the order of Ronald Reagan. With the VAT, Obama's triumph will be complete. He will have succeeded in reversing Reaganism. Liberals have long complained that Reagan's strategy was to starve the (governmental) beast in order to shrink it: First, cut taxes -- then ultimately you have to reduce government spending.

Obama's strategy is exactly the opposite: Expand the beast and then feed it. Spend first -- which then forces taxation. Now that, with the institution of universal health care, we are becoming the full entitlement state, the beast will have to be fed.

And the VAT is the only trough in creation large enough.

As a substitute for the income tax, the VAT would be a splendid idea. Taxing consumption makes infinitely more sense than taxing work. But to feed the liberal social-democratic project, the VAT must be added on top of the income tax.

Ultimately, even that won't be enough. As the population ages and health care becomes increasingly expensive, the only way to avoid fiscal ruin (as Britain, for example, has discovered) is health-care rationing.

It will take a while to break the American populace to that idea. In the meantime, get ready for the VAT. Or start fighting it.

Democrats Unconstitutional Vote Grab

2010-03-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

Restoring Voting Rights of Convicted Felons and H.R. 3335
by Hans von Spakovsky
Heritage Foundation

Thank you for the invitation to testify before the Subcommittee on the subject of felons and the rights of states to prevent convicted criminals from voting.

I am Hans A. von Spakovsky, a Senior Legal Fellow and Manager of the Civil Justice Reform Initiative in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org). I was a Commissioner on the Federal Election Commission for two years and, of particular relevance to the subject of this hearing, I am a former career Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. I am also a former member of the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission as well as the Registration and Election Board of Fulton County, Georgia. I currently serve on the Electoral Board of Fairfax County, Virginia, and on the Virginia Advisory Board to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. All of the views and opinions I express in my testimony are my own and should not be construed as representing any official position of the Heritage Foundation or any other organization.

Various consequences attach to a criminal felony conviction. First, there may be (and usually are) prison or jail sentences. Second, there are other direct penalties such as fines, court costs, restitution, and possible probation and parole requirements. Finally, there are various disabilities such as the inability to own a gun, to work as a police officer, to serve in certain elected offices or to serve on a jury. In short, the initial time in prison is not, and has never been, the only way a felon pays his debt to society for breaking the law and endangering his fellow citizens and the public.

H.R. 3335 represents an unconstitutional intrusion into the rights of the states. Congress simply does not have the constitutional authority to force states to restore the voting rights of convicted felons. There are also good public policy reasons why this should not be done. While some states automatically restore the right to vote after a felon has completed all of the terms of his sentence, others require individual applications. States are entitled to make their own decisions on this issue. That includes implementing procedures that ensure that those who break the law to injure or murder their fellow citizens, to steal, or to damage our democracy by committing election crimes or engaging in public corruption like bribery, have paid their debt to society and, even more importantly, have shown that they can be trusted to exercise all of the rights of full citizenship.

H.R. 3335 states that the right of an individual to vote in any federal election cannot “be denied or abridged because that individual has been convicted of a criminal offense unless such individual is serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of the election.” The definition of “correctional institution or facility” contained in the bill does not include “any residential community treatment center (or similar public or private facility).”

Thus, H.R. 3335 would force all states to immediately restore the ability to vote to convicted felons the moment they are out of prison – even if they are simply out on parole, are in a half-way house or have not completed other requirements of their sentence such as paying restitution to the victims of their crimes or fines and civil penalties imposed on them. In other words, states would be forced to allow criminals to vote before they have even completed the primary terms imposed on them as a punishment by their fellow citizens through our justice system. So at least some individuals who have shown no compunction whatsoever about breaking the law will be given the ability to help make the law.

However, Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically provides that states may abridge the right to vote of citizens “for participation in rebellion, or other crime.” The Fourteenth Amendment simply recognized a process that goes back to ancient Greece and Rome. The claim that state laws that take away the right of felons to vote are all rooted in racial discrimination is simply historically inaccurate – even prior to the Civil War when many black Americans were slaves and could not vote, a majority of states took away the rights of voters who were convicted of crimes.

It is true that some Southern states tried to use these laws during Reconstruction and afterward to disenfranchise blacks, but those laws have all been changed and amended. The case cannot be made today that such laws are in any way applied in a discriminatory fashion. When they have been, they have been struck down, as the Supreme Court did to Alabama’s law in Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222 (1985). However, that case involved Alabama’s 1901 Constitution that disenfranchised persons convicted not just of felonies, but of misdemeanors “involving moral turpitude,” a catchall that was used by state officials specifically to target black Alabamians.

Even the “Findings” in this bill do not claim that felon voting laws are administered in a racially discriminatory fashion; only that they have a “disparate impact” because of the higher incarceration rate of certain minorities. In the Hunter case, however, the Supreme Court specifically noted that “[p]roof of racially discriminatory intent is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.” No such showing of intentional discrimination can be made with regard to such state laws today and they cannot be held unconstitutional even if they have a “racially disproportionate impact.” Criminals lose their right to vote because of their own conscious actions in violating the law, not because of their race.

It should be kept in mind that the Fourteenth Amendment, like the Fifteenth Amendment, was one of the key post-Civil War amendments sponsored and passed by Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln and abolition, to help secure the rights of black Americans, including their right to vote. Those same members of Congress deliberately and intentionally protected the right of states to withhold the right to vote from those citizens convicted of serious crimes against their fellow citizens.

Under our Constitution, if Congress is not acting pursuant to a specific grant of power in Article I, it is acting unconstitutionally. The federal government does not have the inherent power to do whatever it wants – we have a government of limited and enumerated powers. See U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995). There simply is no authority in Article I for Congress to force states to allow felons to vote, particularly in light of the language of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In fact, Section 2 of Article I says that voters for members of the House of Representatives “shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” The Seventeenth Amendment provides the same state qualification for voters for members of the Senate. In other words, the qualifications or eligibility requirements that states apply to their residents voting for state legislators must be applied to those same residents voting for members of Congress, which explicitly places in the hands of the states the ability to determine those qualifications.

This is confirmed by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers, Nos. 52 and 60. James Madison states, for example, in Federalist No. 52, that to have left such qualifications open to “the regulation of the Congress” would be improper. States also disqualify children, noncitizens, and the mentally incompetent. States cannot limit voting qualifications based on race or sex because of the explicit prohibitions of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments – but in contrast, the Fourteenth Amendment specifically allows them to limit those qualifications based on criminal convictions.

Congress is given the authority in Section 4 of Article I to alter the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives” but that power does not extend to the “qualifications” of voters. The qualification of a felon to vote cannot even remotely be compared to a regulation governing the time, place or manner of an election.

Congress has even less authority when it comes to presidential elections. Article II, Section 1, provides that states “shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,” the electors of the Electoral College. Congress can only determine “the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes.” Thus, Congress clearly has no authority under these provisions to tell the states that they must allow felons to vote in presidential (or congressional) elections.

The Equal Protection Doctrine of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment also provides Congress with no authority on this issue. The “Findings” in H.R. 3335 state that “equal protection for Americans to vote in Federal elections” requires a uniform federal rule for felons. However, the Supreme Court threw out an equal protection challenge to California’s felon disenfranchisement law in 1974, concluding that “those who framed and adopted the Fourteenth Amendment could not have intended to prohibit outright in §1 of that Amendment that which was expressly exempted from the lesser sanction of reduced representation imposed by §2 of the Amendment.” Richardson v. Ramirez, 418 U.S. 24, 43 (1974).

Finally, Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970), in which the Supreme Court upheld a federal statute changing the voting age from 21 to 18 just prior to the ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment and the elimination of residency requirements for federal elections also provides no basis for believing that Congress has any constitutional authority for H.R. 3335. The opinion in Mitchell was a fractured decision, in which eight Justices rejected the argument that Congress had the authority under Article I to make such changes – only Justice Black thought Congress had that inherent authority. Four of the justices based their opinion on the age change on the enforcement clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The residency requirement was thrown out based on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because it infringed on an individual’s national right as a citizen to travel. While such a residency requirement would discriminate against individuals living in the same state by allowing older residents to vote while preventing newer residents from voting, a disparity in felon voting laws does not discriminate among voters in the same state.

Because the Fourteenth Amendment gives states the right to bar felons from voting, there is no equal protection violation because some states have different rules for when felons recover their right to vote (two states even allow felons to vote while they are in prison). As in the Richardson case, it cannot be argued that the Privileges or Immunities Clause in Section 1 can take away from the states a right specifically granted them in Section 2.

Finally, as the Eleventh Circuit said in Johnson v. Florida, 405 F.3d 1214 (2005), when it concluded that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act did not apply to Florida’s voting rules for felons, any contrary view would raise “serious constitutional problems because such an interpretation allows a congressional statute to override the text of the Constitution [in the Fourteenth Amendment].” Johnson at 1229 (“Congress has expressed its intent to exclude felon disenfranchisement provisions from Voting Rights Act scrutiny.” Id. at 1234).

Even if Congress had the constitutional authority to pass this legislation, which it does not, there are sound public policy reasons why it should not. The loss of civil rights is part of the sanction that our society has determined should be applied to criminals. Many black communities unfortunately suffer from high rates of crime, yet this bill would have a pernicious effect on the ability of law-abiding citizens to reduce crime in their own communities. These laws are overwhelmingly supported by the public, a clear sign that they do not want their ability to influence the decisions made by elected officials on controlling crime diluted by convicted felons or individuals on parole.

While some states automatically restore the rights of felons when they have completed their sentences, other states have more individualized procedures. Virginia, for example, has set up an application process for felons to apply for the restoration of their civil rights, including the right to vote. Virginia’s process allows for an individualized review in which the state can determine whether a felon has fully paid his debt to society and changed his ways. He cannot apply for restoration until he has been released from supervised probation for three years for nonviolent crimes or five years for violent, drug, or election-related crimes. That is perfectly reasonable and common-sense – particularly since a large majority of felons are rearrested and re-incarcerated within a short time after they are released from prison.

In Virginia, the felon must also show that he has paid all court costs, fines, and restitution to their victims. This proposed bill would completely ignore and override this process, particularly at the expense of victims who are still owed restitution, and grant relief on a wholesale basis, without considering whether someone is really entitled to restoration of his rights.

Finally, what is particularly odd about this proposed legislation is the fact that it is limited only to restoring the ability of convicted criminals to vote. The findings in Section 2 of H.R. 3335 state that this legislation will reintegrate “offenders into free society, helping to enhance public safety.” The findings also say felon disenfranchisement laws serve “no compelling State interest” for felons “who are living and working in the community.” If that is correct, than why does this legislation not propose to restore all of the other civil rights that a convicted criminal loses in many states?

If convicted criminals can now be trusted to exercise the right to vote, as the legislation concludes, and if restoring that ability will help integrate such criminals back into society, then why are their rights to public employment not restored? Many states prohibit felons from working as police officers or school teachers – if they can be trusted with the right to vote, why do the sponsors of this legislation not trust them to work as teachers in our public schools?

State and federal laws also prohibit felons from owning a gun (see e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)). If public safety will be enhanced by providing felons with the ability to vote as the legislation claims, why does this bill not also amend federal law to allow them to once again own a gun? Are we to believe that they can be trusted to vote but not to own a handgun? Are we to believe that the sponsors of this legislation think that a convicted child molester can be trusted to vote but cannot be trusted to be a teacher in a public school? Are we to believe a convicted drug dealer can be trusted to vote but cannot be trusted to be a police officer? Or is the true motivation here based more on the fact that their vote is important to winning close elections?

The problem with the supporters’ narrow focus is obvious. The sponsors apparently trust felons enough to require the automatic restoration of their right to vote, but don’t trust them enough to automatically restore their right to own a gun or all of their other civil rights that were taken away when they were convicted of murder or robbery or rape or bribery.

The American people and their freely elected state representatives must make their own decisions in their own states on when felons should have their civil rights restored, including the right to vote. The Constitution specifically gives that authority to the states and any legislation passed by Congress taking away that power is unconstitutional and bad public policy.

The Constitution's Final Days?

2010-03-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

Pulling the Plug on our Constitution

"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people ... must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify." --Federalist No. 33

Our Constitution is on life support, and House Democrats are about to pull the plug.

Leaders of the Democrat Party ("Progressives" as they call themselves, Leftists as we call them) have been unable to garner popular or even Democrat Party support for their plan to socialize our health care system. Fortunately, Republicans are united in their opposition to this one issue.

Barack Hussein Obama, titular head of the Demos, proclaimed, "I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing."

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi concludes, "Nobody wants to vote for the Senate bill."

She is proposing to overtly circumvent our Constitution by way of the "Slaughter Solution." Rep. Louise Slaughter, chairman of the House Rules Committee, proposes to pass legislation using the "self-executing rule," which will allow the House to accept the already-passed Senate health care bill by presumption alone, thus negating a formal up-or-down vote by House members.

Pelosi confessed, "I like it because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

Unfortunately, there is precedent in invoking the "self-executing rule" -- by Republicans, no less -- concerning "mundane" legislation agreed to by House leaders of both parties. Unconstitutional as these precedents are, there is nothing "mundane" about ObamaCare.

"Slaughter" and "self-executing" may describe both the process and the electoral future of many Democrats in the House.

Most of the Leftist-controlled political and popular debate about the Democrat proposal to turn over to the central government control of more than 17 percent of the U.S. economy, is focused on one question or another -- what will it cost or save, who will pay and who won't, who will be covered and for what, will there be enough physicians to support this in 10 years, will federal funds be used for abortion, can our economy afford another trillion dollar boondoggle, does it really address the entitlement cost tsunami we're facing, ad infinitum.

These might be interesting topics for debate, but none are germane.

The only relevant debate must begin with First Principles, our Constitution and Rule of Law.

Does our Constitution allow the Executive and Legislative branches to collaborate to confer authority upon the federal government over, in this case, so-called "health care reform"?

Those who laid the Foundation of our Constitution were crystal clear about its enumeration of both the authority and limits upon the central government.

James Madison, our Constitution's primary author, wrote, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined [and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce."

Madison continued, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

To that point, Thomas Jefferson asserted: "[G]iving [Congress] a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole [Constitution] to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly, no such universal power was meant to be given them. [The Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

Clearly, our Constitution, does not authorize Congress to nationalize health care, anymore than it authorizes Congress to do most of what it does today.

That notwithstanding, Obama and his Leftist cadres in the House and Senate are moving forward with their endeavor to inflict socialized medicine upon the United States.

They have again, one and all, abandoned their oaths to "support and defend" our Constitution.

Democrat "leaders" have all been questioned about constitutional authority, and have uniformly asserted that the question is irrelevant.

Typical of their non-responses was this indignant question from Speaker Pelosi: "Are you serious? Are you serious?"

Such utter contempt for our Constitution explains why Democrats refuse to support any measure to cite constitutional authority for legislation. For example, the Enumerated Powers Act (HR 1359) would require that "Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act," but for years, insurmountable obstacles have prevented passage of HR 1359 -- and you know who they are.
Circumventing Rule of Law (see the larger version).

As for the Slaughter Solution, Article 1 Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates, "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, and that in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively."

Typical of Republican protests about this effort to evade the Constitution's prescription for passage of legislation, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) called the ruse "the acme of arrogance" and the "shredding the U.S. Constitution."

Unfortunately, more than a few Republicans have dabbled in such unconstitutional chicanery. Thus, I am reminded of the admonition regarding hypocrisy in Matthew 7:4-5. In contemporary terms, Republicans must first demonstrably abide by First Principles before calling on Democrats to do the same.

The only silver lining to this cloud: If Democrats pass ObamaCare, every medical complaint by a Democrat constituent will be hung around their necks.

Fellow Patriots, stand firm for Essential Liberty for we still hold these Truths.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

Erasing American History From Schools

2010-03-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

Look what they're erasing from U.S. history!

A state board of only 15 people will vote on whether to revise U.S. textbooks to omit references to Daniel Boone, Gen. George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day and Christmas.

The Texas State Board of Education will also vote on a proposal to substitute the term "American" with "global citizen."

Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, is warning Americans to speak up before only eight people, with a majority vote, have a chance to literally rewrite American history.

He appeared on the "Huckabee Show" to explain why the board's vote matters to the rest of America. Staver said Texas and California are the two largest textbook purchasers in the nation.

"Whatever textbooks they select affect the rest of the country because publishers publish those kinds of books, and the rest of the country follows," he said.

But because of California's budget crisis, the state hasn't been able to purchase as many new textbooks, he explained. So the default is Texas.

"So when this 15-member board – eight people of that will make a majority – make a decision, it will affect the entire nation," Staver said.

Those eight people could decide what children will learn in various other parts of the country.

According to Liberty Counsel, some of the suggestions that have come forward at various times include:

* Removing references to Daniel Boone, General George Patton, Nathan Hale, Columbus Day and Christmas.

* Including the cultural impact of hip-hop music, ACLU lawyer Clarence Darrow and the Hindu holiday of Diwali.

* Replacing the term "American" with "global citizen" – stating that students need to be shaped "for responsible citizenship in a global society" without any mention of citizenship in American society.

* Replacing expansionism and free enterprise with imperialism and capitalism.

Staver said one proposal suggests the name of Nathan Hale, a patriot of the American Revolutionary War, be removed and replaced with the name of a man who invented fireman helmets. He also said one proposal suggests removal of references to Independence Day.

"Those are no good anymore," Staver told Mike Huckabee. "America is looked at, not as some country that gave liberty and freedom to others around the world, but as a global villain."

He warns, one proposal suggests take the Declaration of Independence and literally erasing God from its Preamble.

"A lot of the history – particularly religious history or patriotic history and American exceptionalism – all of that will simply be removed if people around the country don't speak up," he said.

Cynthia Dunbar, an elected member of the board and assistant professor at Liberty University School of Law, said, "James Madison warned us that when error is allowed to become steeped in precedent it leads to tyranny. If an erroneous view of our American heritage is allowed to stand, that view will be even more entrenched when we revisit this issue again in 10 years. Since the board consists of only 15 members, the decision of eight individuals may determine what goes into textbooks on a national level; it is crucial that the voices of patriotic Americans be heard."

The board's next meeting is in March, and the final reading and adoption of the social studies guidelines will be in May.

Government May Ban Rec Fishing

2010-03-09T07:56:00.000-08:00

Obama administration will accept no more public input for federal fishery strategy

By Robert Montgomery
ESPNOutdoors.com

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is "fluid" and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn't issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That's a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.

"When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario," said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

"Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

"In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President's concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority."

Consequently, unless anglers speak up and convince their Congressional representatives to stop this bureaucratic freight train, it appears that the task force will issue a final report for "marine spatial planning" by late March, with President Barack Obama then issuing an Executive Order to implement its recommendations — whatever they may be.

Led by NOAA's Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling, but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening.

Additionally, Lubchenco and others in the administration have close ties to environmental groups who would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling. And evidence suggests that these organizations have been the engine behind the task force since before Obama issued a memo creating it last June.

Anglering for access united we fish rally capitol washington fishing
AP/Luis M. AlvarezOne sign at the rally of recreational and commercial fishermen summed up the feelings.
As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled "Transition Green" shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

Then in late summer, just after he created the task force, these groups produced "Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy." This document makes repeated references to "overfishing," but doesn't once reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias by playing fast and loose with "facts," in attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

That same tunnel vision, in which recreational angling and commercial fishing are indiscriminately lumped together as harmful to the resource, has persisted with the task force, despite protests by the angling industry.

As more evidence of collusion, the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force's recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February. Fishing advocates had no idea that this was coming.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the New York Times reported on Feb. 12 that "President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities."

Morlock fears that "what we're seeing coming at us is an attempted dismantling of the science-based fish and wildlife model that has served us so well. There's no basis in science for the agendas of these groups who are trying to push the public out of being able to fish and recreate.

"Conflicts (user) are overstated and problems are manufactured. It's all just an excuse to put us off the water."

In the wake of the task force's framework document, the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation (CSF) and its partners in the U.S. Recreational Fishing & Boating Coalition against voiced their concerns to the administration.

"Some of the potential policy implications of this interim framework have the potential to be a real threat to recreational anglers who not only contribute billions of dollars to the economy and millions of dollars in tax revenues to support fisheries conservation, but who are also the backbone of the American fish and wildlife conservation ethic," said CSF President Jeff Crane.

Morlock, a member of the CSF board, added, "There are over one million jobs in America supported coast to coast by recreational fishing. The task force has not included any accountability requirements in their reports for evaluating or mitigating how the new policies they are drafting will impact the fishing industry or related economies.

"Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable."

This is not the only access issue threatening the public's right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.

"With what's being created, the same principles could apply inland as apply to the oceans," he said. "Under the guise of 'marine spatial planning' entire watersheds could be shut down, even 2,000 miles up a river drainage from the ocean.

"Every angler needs to be aware because if it's not happening in your backyard today or tomorrow, it will be eventually.

"We have one of the largest voting blocks in the country and we need to use it. We must not sit idly by."

Gay Lies

2010-03-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

Five Myths about Same Sex Marriage
by Janice Shaw Crouse

March 9, 2010, is the first day that same-sex couples in District of Columbia (D.C.) will be able to have legal marriage ceremonies. More than 100 couples — some coming from nearby states — have licenses for ceremonies. So-called same-sex “marriages” are legal in five other states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont — where the words “bride and groom” are replaced with the names of the individuals, who are each called “spouse” or “Person A” and “Person B.”

Those who oppose same-sex “marriage” are called by derogatory labels: bigot, narrow-minded, hate-filled among the nicest. Such name-calling obscures the very real problems associated with watering down and denigrating traditional marriage.

Let’s begin with the basic argument that people are “born gay.” Apparently, activists are operating under the assumption that if they say this long enough, people will believe it. Yet the science is not there to substantiate their oft-stated premise that homosexuality is genetic and is immutable. The studies that purport to support the idea have not been replicated; instead, they have been repudiated or considered inconclusive. The generally accepted theory is that some people may be predisposed to emotional vulnerabilities that can be exacerbated by external factors, such as parental approval, social acceptance and gender affirmation. Indeed, a growing number of individuals have chosen to reject the homosexual lifestyle. In addition, there is an acknowledgement, even among homosexuals, that persons can “choose” their sexuality (be bisexual or not).

Let’s look at five other myths associated with same-sex “marriage.”

Myth #1: Having same-sex couples celebrate their love does nothing to harm anybody else’s marriage or damage the institution of marriage.

The argument that “what I do is my business and doesn’t hurt anybody but me” is an old argument that has been refuted in numerous ways. The institution of marriage has existed throughout history in almost every culture to protect women and children. Marriage is already under attack from a promiscuous, me-centered culture that derides any male who “gives up” his rights for altruistic reasons and labels him a “powerless wimp.” Likewise, women who “hold out” for marriage are called “prudes” and worse. These cultural changes are bad enough. Society opens the floodgates of cultural destruction if marriage becomes meaningless. Counterfeits always devalue the real thing. Counterfeit marriage will lead to “anything goes” unions. There will be no legal reason to deny anyone the umbrella of “marriage.” The age of those seeking unions will be irrelevant; their blood relationship won’t matter; the number of partners seeking the ceremony or any other characteristic will become meaningless. The whole institution of marriage will be rendered irrelevant. Just look at Scandinavia: they legalized “same-sex marriage;” now, cohabitation rather than marriage is the prevalent household arrangement.

Myth #2: Same-sex “marriage” is an “equal rights” issue.

Activists argue that same-sex “marriage” is like the civil rights issue of racial equality, that homosexuals “deserve” the right to “marry” and have the same benefits and protections of marriage that heterosexuals enjoy. Any denial of that “right,” they say, violates their “equal rights.” The reality is that the same-sex “marriage” effort is more about getting society’s approval for behavior; it is not about benefits or protections. All American citizens have the right to marriage, and all the protections that homosexuals seek are already embedded in American law. Anyone can legally designate beneficiaries and establish who can or cannot visit them in hospitals. Clearly the push is for approval, mainstreaming an aberrant set of values and condoning certain behaviors; it is not for establishing “rights” that already exist. Marriage is more than a “legal” institution; it is an institution supported by society as a haven for children, the foundation of the family, and the well-spring of civility and national strength. The homosexual activists are seeking a special right, one that denies the human truth that male and female are designed to be “one” and are created as the natural means for propagating the human race.

Myth #3: Any group of people — including homosexual couples — can contribute to the well-being of children and form a productive unit of society.

Conveying marital status to any group of people gives them societal affirmation and establishes them as an essential element of society when the research indicates they are not capable of performing those functions. Social science research sends a clear and unequivocal message: the married couple, mom-and-dad family is best for children — not just good, but best in comparison to any other household arrangement. Other households (headed by anyone other than the married mother and father) are far inferior and damaging to children’s well-being and their futures. Already our children are at risk from the increase in cohabitation and the decline in marriage. If we add same-sex “marriage” into the mix, we are disregarding the best interests of our nation’s children. American children are at risk in carefully-documented ways when they are raised in any household but a married mom-and-dad family: They make worse grades, are likely to drop out of school, more prone to getting into trouble, have greater health problems, are more likely to experiment with drugs and/or alcohol, and will likely engage in early sexual activity and thus be more likely to contract a sexually-transmitted disease, have an abortion(s) and/or teen pregnancy.

Myth #4: Same-sex “marriage” is a matter of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

This is one of the more insidious myths related to “same-sex marriage.” There is no way to ignore the fact that same-sex “marriage” violates the deeply-held beliefs of millions of Christian, Jewish and Muslim citizens whose opposition to same-sex “marriage” is founded on central tenets of their faith. Knowing this, the homosexual activists are working through indoctrination programs for the nation’s children. Our public schools are becoming the means through which activists plan to change public opinion and the rule of law. Curriculum programs are instilling the idea that there is no legitimate opposition to homosexuality; instead, any opposition is bigoted and hate-filled. Laws are being changed to force innkeepers, businesses and even our social services to celebrate homosexuality.

More to the point, same-sex “marriage” is already used as a bludgeon to destroy the religious liberties and drive out Christian social services. One recent example: Massachusetts and the District of Columbia have both driven out Catholic adoption agencies, whose moral stand is unacceptable to the homosexual agenda. The radical politics of homosexuality requires orphans to remain without parents at all rather than to allow a Christian agency the religious liberty to find them a home.

Myth #5: “Same-Sex Marriages” are just like heterosexual marriages.

This last myth is probably the one furthest from the truth. In actuality, homosexual unions have a very short lifespan; many of the same-sex “marriages” in Massachusetts are already being dissolved. Further, the health risks associated with homosexual practice are very real and very much in evidence in the emergency rooms of hospitals. There is no denying: Homosexual sex is dangerous and destructive to the human body. Both HIV and HPV are epidemic among homosexual men. Domestic violence is a common problem — twice as prevalent among homosexual couples as in heterosexual ones. Indeed, legally creating a union does not enable two men or two women to become “one flesh,” nor does a legal ceremony give the union sanctity. Instead, the ceremony creates a sham that will devalue all marriages. The government establishes “standards” for measurement and value; to declare a sham union equal to marriage would devalue the “standard” and render all unions worthless and irrelevant. If the U.S. government establishes same-sex “marriages” under law, it will be redefining marriage — completely and irrevocably. Such a powerful statement will contradict the prevailing social science research: There is a big difference between 1) a family created and sanctioned by society when a man and a woman commit to each other and thus form a cohesive unit, and 2) a couple or group of people who live together to form a household in defiance of the prevailing moral codes to render meaningless an institution that has been the bulwark of the family and society throughout history.

Conclusion: The bottom line is that this social issue is a defining moment for mankind, not just this nation. What the homosexual activists are seeking is not a minor shift in the law, but a radical change in the fundamental institution that forms the basis for society. Will we protect marriage as the primary institution protecting women and children, or will we surrender to the forces that claim no one has obligations to others and that adults can do anything they want in their sexual lives regardless of how those actions affect society, especially children, and undermine the public good?

Illegal Immigration Has A Foe - Finally

2010-03-08T07:13:00.000-08:00

The Corrosive Effects of Illegal Immigration
By Doug Patton

of illegal aliens, primarily from Mexico, has had a deleterious effect on our nation's economy. Scores of California hospitals have had to close their doors because of a tsunami of illegals seeking "free" health care -- and receiving it.

Schools across the country are being forced to deal with the children of those here illegally, with many states now fighting over whether to offer these children in-state tuition to attend state colleges and universities.

Two of the largest business associations in the country are at odds over this issue. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which sees cheap, illegal labor as a boon for big business, favors a program that keeps our southern border open. But the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small business owners, says its members frequently see illegals as competition with legitimate enterprise.

We even see sharp divisions in our politics over this issue, as challengers such as former Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth take on former Republican presidential candidate John McCain in that state's primary election this year for the GOP nomination for McCain's Senate seat.

But these are only the most obvious consequences of a misguided policy that has overburdened the most prosperous society on earth, and now the corrosive effects of not enforcing our immigration laws is taking a toll on our body politic at a whole new level.

In my home state of Nebraska, Republican Gov. Dave Heineman currently enjoys sky-high approval ratings from constituents, thanks in large part to his stubborn resistance to tax increases, his principled opposition to Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson's "Cornhusker Kickback," and his veto of a bill that would have provided in-state college tuition for the children of illegals -- a stand that helped him beat back a 2006 primary challenge from former congressman and Nebraska football deity Tom Osborne. Now Heineman has taken another courageous position on behalf of taxpayers by threatening to veto a bill in the Legislature that would provide state-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants.

Unfortunately, Nebraska's Catholic Bishops have come out in favor of the legislation, thereby causing a powerful, Catholic-dominated pro-life group, Nebraska Right-to-Life, to issue an ultimatum: candidates opposing the bill will not receive their endorsement in the upcoming fall election campaign.

"We want to assure that innocent, unborn children will receive prenatal services," says Brenda Eller, president of the group. The group's board voted unanimously to support the bill. "This is the right thing to do from a pro-life position, regardless of the immigration status," Eller declares.

But Gov. Heineman is standing firm. "After a careful and thoughtful review of the various aspects of this issue, we are opposed to illegal immigrants receiving taxpayer-funded benefits," the governor said in a letter read at a public hearing on the prenatal care plan. This once again stands him in good stead with Nebraskans.

"The idea that society is responsible for people who are breaking the law is completely ridiculous and completely false," says Dimitri Krynsky, who emigrated legally from Czechoslovakia thirty years ago. "What the state should do is make sure these people do not find work here, do not find apartments here," he says. "Nebraska should create an environment that will send them home."

Krynsky speaks for the overwhelming majority of Nebraskans, including the many legal immigrants who resent the fact that illegals are being granted all the rights of citizenship without having complied with the law. Since immigration is a federal issue, and it has become obvious that bureaucrats at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have no intention of enforcing the law, state officials have two choices. They can capitulate to the pro-illegal cause or defend the law. Gov. Heineman is one leader who has chosen to do the latter.

Bribes, Corruption and Politics

2010-03-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

The Obama Way: Bluster, Bully, Bribe
by Michelle Malkin

The White House took great offense this week when conservatives suggested President Obama might be trading a judicial appointment for a wavering Democrat's vote on his health care reform plan. "Absurd," a miffed administration official told Politico.com. Wherever could the American people get such an impression? Let us count the ways.

On Wednesday, the very day Obama hosted 10 swing Democrats who had opposed the expansive health care takeover bill in November, the White House issued a press release trumpeting the nomination of Scott M. Matheson Jr. to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. Matheson just happens to be the brother of Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson of Utah -- one of the 10 Dems invited to sip wine and nosh on calorically correct appetizers with the arm-twister-in-chief.

The seat on the 10th Circuit has been vacant for nearly a year. When one of the judges, Michael McConnell, resigned to take a lucrative post at Stanford Law School last summer, Matheson -- Rhodes Scholar, law school professor and dean -- let the White House know right away he wanted the job. For nearly a year, there was no action.

Liberal groups have been complaining for months about the glacial pace of Obama's judicial nominations -- a predicament they blame not solely on obstructionist Republicans, but on Obama's own team of incompetent, indecisive foot-draggers who put the issue at the bottom of their priority list. (It's worth noting that Utah GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch supports Matheson's candidacy.)

Sean Hannity FREE

As the National Law Journal pointed out at the beginning of this year, "the Obama administration has been slower than the Bush administration was in sending judicial nominations to the Senate, submitting 12 circuit nominations last year compared with 28 for Bush in 2001. The White House last named a circuit nominee on Nov. 4."

Now, out of nowhere, comes the announcement of Matheson's nomination -- in the heat of White House vote-grubbing to salvage the Democrats' government health care designs? To quote Dana Carvey's old Church Lady character on "Saturday Night Live": How conveeenient.

Let us consider the possibility, for a brief moment, that this is all merely coincidence. Is the White House so fantastically blind and tone-deaf that it failed to detect the blood-red flags and blaring alarm bells that Scott Matheson's judicial nomination would raise coming on the very day Obama was wooing his brother? Incorrigibly corrupt or incorrigibly stupid. Take your pick.

The perception of a judgeship-for-Obamacare-vote deal is, of course, horribly unfair to Matheson, who seems more than qualified for the position. But full blame for creating that unmistakable perception lies squarely at the feet of the rank opportunists in the White House, whose timing is worse than a broken metronome.

This debacle comes on the heels of damning disclosures about other possible White House bribery. Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania admitted to veteran Philly newsman Larry Kane that Team Obama dangled a "high-ranking" position in the administration if he dropped out of the Senate race and left incumbent Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter alone.

In Colorado, the Denver Post reported last fall that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina "offered specific suggestions" for an Obama administration job to far-left Democrat Andrew Romanoff if he withdrew his challenge to White House-backed incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet.

And earlier this month, The Washington Times noted that Mary Patrice Brown, the person assigned by the Justice Department to oversee an internal investigation into the shady dismissal of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation cases, is now "the leading candidate for a federal judgeship -- for which she is being vetted by some of the same offices she supposedly is investigating."

So, wherever did we get the impression that pay-for-play is the Obama way? Somewhere, Chicago corruptocrat Rod Blagojevich -- who wanted to play, but didn't get paid -- is laughing bitterly.

Conflict Of Interest-Who Cares?

2010-03-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

The DOJ9 (And Still Counting)
by David Davenport

With health care dominating the headlines, it was easy to miss the unfolding drama between Congress and the Obama administration about the legal war on terror. The most recent installment was a remarkable and belated five-page letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Rep. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, acknowledging that at least nine attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice represented terrorist detainees before joining the Obama administration.

Why is this a problem? Let me count the ways.

First are actual and perceived conflicts of interest, which attorneys are always obligated to avoid. The problem is not that they represented detainees - everyone deserves a defense - but that they are now on the other side. When this happens, attorneys must recuse themselves and avoid handling, or ideally even advising on, the matter. Unfortunately Holder's incomplete response still didn't clarify the role of these nine attorneys in Justice Department terror policies and prosecutions.

Second is the appearance of bias or an agenda, that the hens have taken over what is supposed to be the foxes' den. The Department of Justice is supposed to be prosecuting terrorists, not coddling them. What are we to think if the organized crime unit brings in nine mob lawyers? At least one of these nine was with a human rights advocacy group and has no prosecutorial experience. For an administration that preaches pragmatism and not ideology, it's at least a question mark, if not a black mark.

Close behind come questions of transparency. President Obama set a high bar here, promising the most open and transparent administration in history. Congress asked for this information three months ago, and Holder said he'd consider it. Yikes.

Three months later, he provided an incomplete letter, not including all the divisions of his department, as had been requested, nor did he note attorneys that came from law firms that handled such cases. This creates more political smoke that the administration does not need and raises further questions about whether Holder is really up to this job.

Finally, and perhaps most important, it adds to the growing concern in Congress and among the public that the Obama administration isn't handling the legal war on terror properly. A recent CNN Poll shows growing disapproval of this, with those disapproving of the handling of the Christmas bomber, for example, now exceeding those who approve, 47 percent to 45 percent. Like cooking without a nonstick pan, these legal problems are starting to accumulate.

First came the promise to close Guantanamo, only to find that senators don't want detainees in their home states. Then granting Miranda rights to the Christmas bomber, rather than taking him before a military court where such rights do not automatically apply. Bringing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for a civilian trial, at a projected cost of $200 million for security alone? What would they do if the United States actually caught Osama bin Laden: read him his rights and give him a show trial in Washington, D.C.?

Who's making these decisions? That's what Congress wanted to know and I'm afraid we're only beginning to find out.

Why Do We Give Constitutional Rights To Illegals?

2010-02-19T10:54:00.000-08:00

Illegal alien lawsuits clog courtrooms in California
Well-funded illegal alien activists in Southern California have found a new way to attack Americans fighting for secure borders and enforcement of current immigration laws. The fight has moved from the streets where they wave the their Mexican flag to America's civil courtrooms.

“Allow me to understand this correctly. Illegal aliens, people who have committed a crime by entering this country illegally, and who continue to commit additional crimes by using counterfeit documents to project a status they are not entitled to, are suing cities and citizens for "disrupting their RIGHT to work in the US, even though they have no such right? If any immigrant "rights" organization or other advocacy group is responsible for the filing of such suits, either directly or indirectly, they should be counter claimed against for abuse of process and malicious prosecution. It's time for the good citizens of this country to fight back through the courts,” said retired ICE Agent John Sampson who now runs CSI Consulting and Investigations.
The beef about an upcoming lawsuit in San Diego against Jeff Schwilk, founder of the San Diego Minutemen, stems from a violent attack on Los Angeles anti-illegal immigration activist John Monti in November 2006 at the Rancho Penasquitos day-labor site in San Diego.
“Controversial San Diego attorney Daniel Gilleon was hired by La Raza operatives more than three years ago to go after San Diego Minutemen and other pro-security activists,” says Schwilk.
Monti had gone to the infamous makeshift hiring site to photograph the day laborers and the law-breaking employers hiring illegal workers. “It is still a felony to hire illegal aliens in the U.S. and studies have shown that almost all day laborers are illegal aliens from Latin America, Schwilk explains.
While photographing the street-side hiring process, Monti was suddenly jumped from behind by at least seven Hispanic men. “They punched him, tried to steal his professional camera, and pushed him into the busy boulevard. Several passersby’s witnessed the attack and called 911. When police arrived two minutes later, they found a bloody and shaken Mr. Monti,” witnesses reported.
Once the police were called to the scene, all of the attackers had made a run for it. Luckily, Monti photographed many of the laborers prior to the attack and was able to show San Diego Police Department. The next day the victim, Monti, sent the same pictures via email to local San Diego activists so they could call the police if the suspects returned to the day labor site where they usually look for employment every day. At this point Schwilk received the pictures and forwarded them to his local law enforcement contacts and other concerned residents in the area.
Their claim was defendants were disseminating pictures of the suspects with Monti's statement and pointed out that they were wanted for questioning by SDPD regarding day-labor site scuffle. The flyer indicated if anyone had any information about the incident to phone the police.
Police records show the suspects were being sought for questioning and most of them were eventually found and questioned. No charges against the suspects were ever filed, as they all, not surprisingly, claimed that Monti attacked them first. According to Schwilk, local illegal alien activists were seen speaking with the suspects soon after the attacks.
“Witnesses who saw Monti being attacked and beaten were ignored by investigators and the city attorney, who were under extreme pressure from the so-called ‘Mexican mafia’ to protect the suspects (most of them Mexican citizens) from prosecution,” Schwilk contends. Fox News' and Monti's lawsuits were eventually dismissed or settled, but Schwilk demanded a trial to prove that this was just another unfounded, frivolous lawsuit and malicious prosecution meant to harass and silence those who oppose illegal immigration.
This defamation suit also accuses Schwilk of putting up Monti's "wanted posters" in the area around the day labor site - a charge Schwilk denies. Schwilk and a few other concerned citizens did use Monti's pictures to identify two of the suspects standing at the sidewalk hiring area three days after the attack.
"When we saw two of the suspects back at their sidewalk loitering area, we immediately called SDPD. The lead detective of the nearby division came to the scene and explained to us that they had already questioned and released those two men and that an arrest had been made," Schwilk said. “The officers refused to elaborate further, but they told us they were fully investigating the assault on Monti and hoped to bring all of the guilty day laborers to justice.”
The lead attorney in this so-called lawsuit is Dan Gilleon of Del Mar(??). In emails from Gilleon obtained by the Examiner, Gilleon repeatedly seems to be asking Schwilk to settle the case over the past year. In the most recent email sent on Feb. 6, Gilleon again offers to Schwilk, "If you want to settle, we'll take $1,000 for each plaintiff, cash now, or $10,000 each in stipulated judgments."
Schwilk has repeatedly told the plaintiff’s attorney Gilleon that he has no intention of settling this case because he is the victim not the other way around. In addition to last minute attempts to avoid taking this case to trial, Gilleon failed to depose Schwilk for 2 1/2 years and recently convinced the judge to allow a last-minute deposition just days before the trial is set to commence.
In a voicemail message from Gilleon, he declined to comment on this pending case. However he claims there is a new lawsuit pending against Schwilk. However, court records show no new lawsuits have been filed.

Schwilk, who is now defending himself, says he strongly opposes a deposition at this late date because he believes Gilleon lied to the judge about trying to depose him in October. Evidence submitted to the court last week clearly shows that Gilleon claimed to have served Schwilk a notice of a deposition at a long-abandoned store in Oceanside. Schwilk says he has asked Judge Styn to rescind his recent deposition order and the motion is pending.
The trial begins on Thursday. It is worth pointing out, the attorney for the plaintiffs admitted that all his clients were living in Mexico and may not be able to enter the country legally to attend the trial, according to Schwilk.
It is a sad commentary that the civil court system is filled with well-funded foreign interests who hire activist lawyers to gain control of the country for their illegal clients.
The Minutemen vow to keep fighting no matter how many lawsuits La Raza activists file against them. "Our cause to make our cities and our country safe and secure is too great to be deterred by these people who make a mockery of our legal system," Schwilk finishes.
In another lawsuit filed in Costa Mesa, California, MALDEF the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund charges the city’s anti-solicitation ordinance is unconstitutional. Joining in on the February 2, 2010 lawsuit is the ACLU of Southern California and the National Day Laborer’s Organizing Network (NDLON).
The civil rights groups filed the lawsuit against the City of Costa Mesa on behalf of the Association de Jornaleros de Costa Mesa and the Colectivo Tonantzin, whose members have been restricted from peaceably expressing their need and availability for employment in the city’s public areas due to the ordinance.
Claiming his client’s first Amendment right, MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz said, "Free speech, one of our most cherished rights, belongs to everyone in society. Day laborers seeking work have as much right to express themselves as the largest corporation employing hundreds of thousands. Costa Mesa’s anti-solicitation ordinance violates this vital and longstanding constitutional principle."
“The city’s anti-solicitation ordinance prohibits any person standing on a sidewalk or other public area from soliciting employment, business or contributions in any manner deemed to be intended to attract the attention of traveling vehicles. The ordinance subjects day laborers and other solicitors to a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment up to six months. The ordinance violates the day laborers’ First and Fourteenth amendments rights under the United States Constitution,” according Saenz.
"Day laborers have contributed to the Costa Mesa economy for decades," says Pablo AlvaradoPablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. "Particularly during these tough times, the hard work they provide the community should be rewarded and not the target of destructive law enforcement practices."
The ruling of federal courts throughout the country in the past have ruled in favor of preserving the free speech rights of day laborers, which allows them to continue to solicit work.
“The contention that the civil rights of illegal day laborers are being violated is pure malarkey and if anything at all, the advocates can be criminally charged and prosecuted for aiding and abetting illegal alien immigration,” says Vince Johnson in a letter to the city of Costa Mesa.
He goes on to explain this frivolous lawsuit should be recognized as such by any federal judge who may incorporate immigration law regarding employment by undocumented immigrants.
“I suggest that you utilize the resources of Homeland Security/ICE, the US Department of Labor and the US Justice Department to promptly stop this court action and affirm that this country can not be controlled by people who do not even have the right to be in this country. Any meddling by the Mexican government is a clear-cut violation of American law and sovereignty,” Johnson finished.
The meddling of Mexico continues to play out on both sides of the border. It was reported by the M3 report (a publication put out by the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers) that all political parties of the Mexican Senate must reproached the policy change of direction of President, Barack ObamaBarack Obama, “who has decided to go back on the promise he made to all the Hispanic groups that supported him, and now he insists on closing the border. The government of Barack Obama seeks to increase the funds to reinforce border security with $4.6 billion to support 20,000 agents of the Border Patrol, as well as to finish the first portion of the ‘virtual fence,’” the report stated.
The Mexican government continues by “announcing that he (Obama) will build the missing portion of the ‘virtual fence’ by means of which everyone who crosses, undocumented or illegally, will be detected and can be immediately jailed and later expelled, (and also) reinforcing the number of agents for customs, as well as for the border. From now on we Mexicans will not know what to believe when we speak with the President of all the Americans, because he is a President who fails to keep his word,” according to a member of the Mexican Senate.
One thing is certain Mexico continues to demand the rule of law be tweaked in their favor when it comes to illegal immigration. This will surely set up a very contentious immigration reform debate, one the American people have clearly stated Amnesty will not be a part of the legislation.

Union Socialism

2010-02-16T08:00:00.000-08:00

The Problem Is Government Unions
by Phyllis Schlafly
The Senate's decisive defeat of confirmation of radical labor lawyer Craig Becker is the first tangible result of the Massachusetts Miracle, which made Scott Brown the 41st Republican in the U.S. Senate. Two red-state Democrats also voted not to proceed toward a vote on President Obama's nomination of Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Becker is a top lawyer for the Service Employees International Union, which spent $60 million to elect Obama. SEIU's boss, Andy Stern, was the most frequent visitor to Obama's White House last year.

The NLRB is supposed to be a neutral arbiter of labor disputes. Becker had other plans for the NLRB. He was expected to try to implement what is called "Card Check" even though Congress has declined to pass it.

Card Check is a bill to eliminate the secret ballot by which employees have the right to vote yea or nay on authorizing a union as their bargaining agent. Card Check would replace the secret ballot with allowing union officials to intimidate employees into just signing a card.

Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution

The left-wing magazine "In These Times" wrote that Becker "helped lay the intellectual foundation" for Card Check. He wrote a law review article to propose using the NLRB's regulatory power to achieve the goals of Card Check without action by Congress.

While working for the SEIU, Becker also helped write three pro-labor executive orders that Obama signed just a week after taking office.

Older Americans may fondly remember bygone days when some unions played a positive role in our free economy. In the 1950s, many unions expelled communist agitators.

Today's unions, by contrast, promote big-government solutions to every problem. That's because of the dramatic change in the membership of powerful unions.

An important milestone was reached last year when, for the first time, the majority of union members (51.4 percent) were federal or state government employees. The political power of government workers unions is a major reason why government spending is now out of control.

The average pay of federal workers is over $71,000 (in Washington, D.C., it's $94,047), whereas the average pay in the private sector (if you have a job) is $50,028. Annual raises are a matter of course, and government employees enjoy close to lifetime job security and benefits including retirement.

Rising star Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, commented, "I about fell off my chair when I saw that the number of federal employees making more than $150,000 have more than doubled in the last 18 months."

Another Washington labor lawyer, Joseph Sandler, who is described as a "renowned expert on election law," has created a crow's nest of front groups whose goal is to undermine the Tea Party movement. These groups have funneled vast amounts of union dues money, including $10 million from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), into fronts with innocuous names such as "Patriot Majority" and "Citizens for Progress."

To defeat Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative to protect traditional marriage, the SEIU spent $500,000 and the California teachers union spent $1,250,000. After the voters approved the measure, over 50 unions (including the national AFL-CIO) signed a brief asking the courts to overturn the will of the people.

SEIU plays rough. It was a bunch of SEIU thugs, clearly identified by their purple shirts emblazoned with "SEIU," who attended a Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., Town Hall Meeting and beat up Kenneth Gladney, a black man passing out flags that read "Don't Tread On Me."

The day after the Senate rejected Becker, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, introduced a measure to abolish the Senate filibuster, and thereby nullify the value of Scott Brown becoming the 41st Republican. That bill isn't going to pass because it would take 67 votes, which Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can't round up.

Some namby-pamby Republicans think that the president is entitled to get confirmation of all his judicial nominees despite the Senate's constitutional power to accept or reject them. The defeat of Becker should give all Republicans the backbone to use the filibuster to reject any court nominee who believes in a "living" Constitution.

The prospective nominees who are reputed to be on Obama's short list for the next Supreme Court vacancy are weirdos of various flavors. One says it's OK for the Indiana Legislature to open with an invocation honoring Allah but not Jesus; another calls himself a transnationalist and wants to integrate foreign law into U.S. domestic law; and another wants dogs to have lawyers and says the government owns the organs of any person who may soon die, and can remove the organs without any consent.

Now that Republicans have 41 senators, our republic can be saved from such nonsense by a filibuster. So, go to it, Republicans.

MUSLIM HOOLIGANISM

2010-02-13T16:37:00.000-08:00

CAL. SENATORIAL CANDIDATE RESPONDS TO MUSLIM HOOLIGANISM
By Rabbi Nachum Shifren
February 13, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

Orange County, CA — Here is an "Alice in Wonderland" campus reality — in which the characters are deadly serious, and the suckers are us.

Let's be clear: these are not campus "rowdies," or rude and disrespectful "students." These “students” are the front line of an army of Muslims that is waiting patiently to take over and subvert our country.

Confrontation and disruption is their job. This is what they’ve been trained for, and they are right on target. As their numbers and influence grow, they will be attempting a political takeover, and if that doesn’t work, they will turn to further intimidation, murder and terrorism — just as they’ve already proved in dozens of countries around the world.

Here are eight Rules that guide muslim “students”:

Rule #1: East is East, and West is West, and the two worlds will forever remain divergent. Witness the throngs of thousands mourning the death of Saddam Hussein. Why? Why was the Muslim world remorseful about the demise of this butcher of at least one million of his own countrymen? Because for the Arab, he represented strength. No matter if he was feared and pushed Iraq 1,000 years into darkness. The rule that we in the West refuse to acknowledge is simply that to the muslim, whoever is perceived as strong, will be feared and will survive; and whoever is seen as weak, irresolute, or wavering, will be despised and will be vanquished.

When Muslim students at UC Irvine see their chancellor pleading, begging, supplicating for "dialog," and "respect," they are not only sickened by such weak-kneed exhibitions, they are emboldened to greater acts of anarchy and contempt for everything that we in the West hold dear.

Rule #2: Muslims expect total control and iron discipline in their own countries. There are no "student unions." There, the students would not dare raise their heads in disobedience, because they know what awaits them (no, you will not find an Islamic version of the ACLU). But they can get away with running amok here at UC Irvine, where we stupidly "accommodate" those who advocate our demise.

Rule #3: This will be a hard bullet for America to bite, but we are at war with Islam! Those who deny this are quislings or fifth-columnists — and very often, university professors and chancellors. With strong leadership, there would be no notions of "academic freedom" for those who come here to subvert and destroy.

Unfortunately, the last California administrator with courage and real leadership abilities was S.I. Hayakawa. Hayakawa would have donned his tam o’shanter cap and confronted the student disrupters. Instead, at Irvine, the Muslim students will get a slap on the wrist and be released, emboldening them a thousand times more.

Make no mistake: these students are the probing squads that are testing the waters to see what they can get away with, positioning themselves to ultimately shut down the entire campus when they please. These are among the first salvos in a war that, until now, has been only academic and ideological — at least in this country.

If you want to see where we are headed, if we don’t find the courage to stand up to and defeat these muslim terrorists-in-training, just look to France, Spain, England and other countries where muslims have been allowed to get a toe-hold. Or consider the carnage caused by just one insane muslim terrorist at Fort Hood, then multiply that many times over, as more muslim terrorists consolidate their power base in our country — and our state and their favorite breeding grounds, our campuses!

Rule #4: Jewish guilt uber alles. There is something sad, even sinister about a people that has suffered pogroms, inquisitions, crusades, and now jihad intifadas — and yet, tragically (psychotically?) refuses to understand that they are on the chopping block of these marauders and brigades from Hell.

In every campus where there is a Muslim Student Union, there is a Jewish Student Union. When do we ever hear about "in your face" actions against Muslim perfidy on these campuses (mini war zones) by Jewish Students? Where are the rabbis, the Hillels, the Jewish communities raising their voices loudly and stridently against these invaders of the America that has let Jews find refuge and miraculous opportunity, in an otherwise ugly world? How can this lemming-like behavior be explained? Muslim students don’t bother explaining, they just exploit the intellectual dishonesty and cowardice of the Jewish community.

Rule #5: Where there is a vacuum, something will occupy it. Muslims judge that decadent America, so obsessed with excess and titillation, has run its course. And who can refute them? Corruption in our country is the order of the day! Teen drop-ous, gangs and crime, greed and political abandonment of our Constitutional principles all support the muslim’s view of our nation.

Without strength of character in our leaders, and the courage of our people, we are poised to become just another chapter in history — right next to the debauched and pillaged societies of Greece and Rome. The muslim onslaught is at the gates; they are weary of our self-indulgence and they abhor our eroding social mores and valueless culture. They are sharpening the long knives, knowing that their time will come shortly.

Rule #6: Jihadists and Muslim radicals cannot subvert our country by themselves. They need a willing entourage of leftist and communist sympathizers, fellow travelers, progressives and socialist utopians. As the Prophet so clearly stated: "From your haters and destroyers, they shall come forth."

As school teachers, we witness our students being soft-balled the "religion of peace" so often, that to denounce it for the bloodthirsty, contentious plague that it is, is to be accused of "hate crimes." So it is we, the teachers, who must bear the burden of dumbing down several generations of Americans, teaching “feel good” lessons, diluting the uniqueness of the American Revolution, diminishing the strength of character that built a strong, free nation, and the altar on which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are sacrificed. No wonder teachers are so despised in nearly every school in the land!

And so, when the media and the rest of the sheeple gawk and are “shocked, simply shocked” over one of our students who is caught in Afghanistan fighting against our soldiers, who among us can still be shocked, let alone surprised? We have seen the enemy on our campuses and universities, and it is us!

For if we educators, knowing what we do about the spread of Islam and the subjugation of peoples and continents under its yoke, the lack of freedom for women, the loss of freedom of speech and thought, and the murderous credo of the Koran, do not stand up for truth in teaching, what respect can we deserve? In our vanity, we think of ourselves as the elite of society, serving as mentors to succeeding generations of youth yearning for truth in knowledge — yet we have perverted the truth and accepted a revisionist treatment of the story of man, of the history of the world and of the greatness of the successful American experiment in liberty.

Should we be surprised at the disdain of our students, who know they are not being held to the high standards of their forebears? Shall we be surprised when the great body of Americans shun and punish us for being the primary tool of “progressives” that causes our once great land to fall into the abyss of socialism, and then tyranny — as has been the history of other great nations?

What to do? Is this dark drama irreversible on our campuses? No, not irreversible, but it will take a revolution in thought and action. It must start with we educators who see America as more than just a "job" and a cool vacation. It will take a daily struggle for truth — and the best place to start is with the dictum: those who wish respect, will do well to show self-respect. The Muslim riffraff did not badmouth and malign that which they feared and respected at UC Irvine!

Those who will incite and seek to undermine our institutions using our own openness and sense of fair play must be removed from our campuses and our soil. Until we have the courage to do that, we shall not be able to sustain a country where men of good will can dialogue and debate ideas for the good of society.

© 2010 Nachum Shifren - All Rights Reserved

Media Lies About A Corrupt Politician

2010-02-12T09:26:00.000-08:00

John Murtha: Requiem for a Corruptocrat
by Michelle Malkin

We are not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But those whom the deceased viciously smeared and humiliated deserve to be defended. Entrenched Democratic Rep. John Murtha passed away on Feb. 8 after a botched gallbladder surgery. He has been hailed as a "military advocate" (Associated Press) and "one of the greatest patriots ever to serve in Congress" (former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr.). These obsequious obituaries leave out inconvenient truths:

John "Jack" Murtha was an unrepentant smear merchant and corruptocrat to the bitter end.

In May 2006, during an MSNBC TV show appearance that Marines and their families will never forget or forgive, Murtha accused U.S. troops of wantonly killing some two dozen civilians, including children, in the terrorist stronghold of Haditha, Iraq. Bellowed Murtha: "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood." Murtha publicly indicted the Marines before military investigations had been completed. His remarks opened military-bashing floodgates around the world.

In the wake of Murtha's reckless blabbing, MSNBC executioner Keith Olbermann accused the Haditha Marines of "willful targeted brutality." The Nation magazine claimed that "members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre." The New York Times dubbed Haditha the "defining atrocity" of the Iraq war. International papers piled on with Vietnam-era "My Lai" allusions. Murtha cold-bloodedly sat back and enjoyed the ride while the Marines were left twisting in the wind.

By 2008, seven of the Marines charged in the incident had been exonerated or had charges against them dropped. Lt. Andrew Grayson was acquitted. Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, Capt. Lucas McConnell, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz and Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani all had their cases dismissed. Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the last of the Marines facing charges, awaits a long, dragged-out trial this year.

Murtha, the so-called "military advocate," went to his deathbed refusing to apologize or retract the attacks on the Haditha Marines (several of whom unsuccessfully sued him for libel to restore their honor). Decent people would call this intransigent treachery. Murtha's friends apparently consider it great patriotism.

The ego-bloated, big-mouthed lawmaker treated his own constituents with trademark contempt. During his last congressional campaign, he mocked voters in his district as bigots. "There's no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area," he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Responding to mounting criticism on both sides of the aisle about his logrolling orgies on the Hill, he sniffed: "If I'm corrupt, it's because I take care of my district."

First, foremost and forever, Jack Murtha took care of Jack Murtha. The glowing encomiums from his liberal colleagues have glossed over the 19-term Democrat's defining moment of political self-service. In 1980, Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive bribery probe -- in which undercover FBI agents videotaped Murtha entertaining a $50,000 bribe from agents posing as emissaries for Arab sheiks trying to enter our country illegally. From transcripts of those conversations published by the late newspaper columnist Jack Anderson, Murtha's true colors shined:

"I want to deal with you guys awhile before I make any transactions at all, period. … After we've done some business, well, then I might change my mind. …"

"I'm going to tell you this. If anybody can do it -- I'm not B.S.-ing you fellows -- I can get it done my way," he boasted. "There's no question about it."

Murtha worried not about his integrity or how his constituents might be harmed, but about getting ratted out:

"All at once," he said, "some dumb (expletive deleted) would go start talking eight years from now about this whole thing and say (expletive deleted), this happened. Then in order to get immunity so he doesn't go to jail, he starts talking and fingering people. So the (S.O.B.) falls apart."

"You give us the banks where you want the money deposited," offered one of the bagmen.

"All right," agreed Murtha. "How much money we talking about?"

"Well, you tell me."

By the time of his death, Murtha had been caught intervening on behalf of a law-breaking Pennsylvania company convicted of selling military equipment parts illegally overseas; had steered unprecedented billions in federal earmarks to friends, family and donors; had earned multiple "most corrupt in Congress" designations from both the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the right-leaning Judicial Watch; and had remained intimately tied to PMA Group, a former lobbying firm under federal investigation, and Kuchera Industries, a defense contractor also under federal investigation.

From his character assassination of innocents to his insatiable appetite for pork and power, Jack Murtha embodied everything that is wrong with Washington. If only the culture of corruption he serviced could be buried six feet under with him.

Unions Have Become Leeches

2010-02-08T07:20:00.000-08:00

Public-Sector Unions Bleed Taxpayers to Help Dems
Michael Barone

Growing up in Michigan in the heyday of the United Auto Workers, I long assumed that labor unions were part of the natural order of things.

That's no longer clear. Last month, the Labor Department reported that private-sector unions lost 834,000 members last year and now represent only 7.2 percent of private-sector employees. That's down from the all-time peak of 36 percent in 1953-54.

But union membership is still growing in the public sector. Last year, 37.4 percent of public sector employees were union members. That percentage was down near zero in the 1950s. For the first time in history, a majority of union members are government employees.

In my view, the outlook for both private- and public-sector unionism is problematic.

Private-sector unionism is adversarial. Economic studies show that such unions do extract premium wages and benefits from employers. But that puts employers at a competitive disadvantage. Back in the 1950s, the Big Three auto companies dominated the industry and were at the top of the Fortune 500. Last year, General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt and are now owned by the government and the UAW. Ford only barely escaped.

Adversarial unionism tends to produce rigid work rules that retard adaptation and innovation. We have had a three-decade experiment pitting UAW work rules against the flexible management of Japanese- and European-owned non-union auto firms.

The results are in. Yes, clueless management at the Detroit firms for years ignored problems with product quality and made bonehead investment mistakes. But adversarial unionism made it much, much harder for Detroit to produce high-quality vehicles than it was for non-unionized companies.

As economist Barry Hirsch points out, non-union manufacturing employment rose from 12 million to 14 million between 1973 and 2006. In those years, union manufacturing employment dropped from 8 million to 2 million. "Unionism," Hirsch writes, "is a poor fit in a dynamic, competitive economy."

Moreover, federal laws passed since the 1950s now protect workers from racial and sex discrimination, safety hazards and pension failure. They don't need unions to do this any more.

Public-sector unionism is a very different animal from private-sector unionism. It is not adversarial but collusive. Public-sector unions strive to elect their management, which in turn can extract money from taxpayers to increase wages and benefits -- and can promise pensions that future taxpayers will have to fund.

The results are plain to see. States like New York, New Jersey and California, where public-sector unions are strong, now face enormous budget deficits and pension liabilities. In such states, the public sector has become a parasite sucking the life out of the private-sector economy. Not surprisingly, Americans have been steadily migrating out of such states and into states like Texas, where public-sector unions are weak and taxes are much lower.

Barack Obama is probably the most union-friendly president since Lyndon Johnson. He has obviously been unable to stop the decline of private-sector unionism. But he is doing his best to increase the power -- and dues income -- of public-sector unions.

One-third of last year's $787 billion stimulus package was aid to state and local governments -- an obvious attempt to bolster public-sector unions. And it was a successful one: While the private sector has lost 7 million jobs, the number of public-sector jobs has risen. The number of federal government jobs has been increasing by 10,000 a month, and the percentage of federal employees earning over $100,000 has jumped to 19 percent during the recession.

Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 to Democrats in the 2008 campaign cycle. Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party.

But it may not turn out to be a perpetual-motion machine. Public-sector employees are still heavily outnumbered by those who depend on the private sector for their livelihoods. The next Congress may not be as willing as this one has been to bail out state governments dominated by public-sector unions. Voters may bridle at the higher taxes needed to pay for $100,000-plus pensions for public employees who retire in their 50s. Or they may move, as so many have already done, to states like Texas.

Obama's Democrats have used the financial crisis to expand the public sector and the public-sector unions. But voters seem to be saying, "Enough."

Judge Moore Rides Again

2010-02-06T07:31:00.000-08:00

New 'bill of particulars' cites Obama failings

By Chelsea Schilling

Citing American patriots such as Thomas Paine, James Madison, Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry, Judge Roy Moore lit a fire in the hearts
of tea partiers tonight – inspiring four impassioned standing ovations with his reading of a "bill of particulars" against President Obama.

Moore, WND columnist, author of "So Help Me God" and candidate for governor in Alabama, began by quoting Thomas Paine as he made his case for independence from England:

"These are the times that try men's souls," he told a packed banquet room at the first national tea-party convention in Nashville.

"Once again we live in a trying time, not just trying to the souls of men and women, but the soul of our nation," he continued. "Once again, people across our country are rising up, tired of politics as usual, angry about the direction of our country."

The recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts send a strong message to the Democratic Party that Americans are weary of the direction in which the nation is headed, he said.

"Equally, if not more importantly, the election in New York sent a strong message to the Republican Party that we're tired of liberal Republicans who don't hold the principles of their party," he told a cheering crowd.

Moore condemned "senseless treaties" like the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and the Central America Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA. He said the nation's borders have been opened to criminals and terrorists, the Constitution discarded, the federal government grown in size and scope "far beyond anything our founders ever imagined," and the nation's debt is soaring.

"Our state sovereignty, routinely ignored by an all-powerful federal bureaucracy, and our concept of virtue and morality has been distorted and twisted to a point that good is now called evil, and evil is now called good," Moore said. "I'll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, we not only find ourselves in a great economic recession, but in a great moral and spiritual depression as well."

Visit the one and only "tea-party store" now

The convention attendees took to their feet as the room instantaneously exploded in cheers.

"I admit that often it is not easy to identify those responsible for these ills in our society, for they call themselves Democrats and Republicans," he continued. "They call themselves conservatives and liberals. They pose as Christians and non-Christians."

However, Moore said those responsible have a few things in common.

"They hate our country and our past," he said. "They have no regard for our beloved Constitution. They have a love of wealth and power more than of liberty and freedom."

He added that they have yet another thing in common: They don't quit.

"One of those who said he didn't quit is our current president, Barack Obama," Moore noted.

He then began to paraphrase the Declaration of Independence. But rather than addressing grievances to the king of Britain, Moore presented Obama with his own "bill of particulars":

He has ignored our history and our heritage, arrogantly declaring to the world that we are no longer a Christian nation. He's elevated immorality to a new level, setting aside the entire month of June last to celebrate Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender pride.

He now threatens to change our law, 10 U.S.C. Section 654, to allow homosexuality in our military in direct opposition to the law which says that the attempt to engage in homosexuality will create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.

He has apologized to the Arab world for our past, subjugated our national sovereignty by bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia.

He has pursued a socialist agenda by taking control of private companies and pushing a national health-care plan with a public option. Backed by a willing Congress, he has bought off our senators and our representatives with our own money in an effort to mandate this agenda. And when opposed by members of the Senate, he smugly smiled and said, "I won."

Moore concluded his list with a direct quote from the Declaration: "A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."

Once again, the crowd went wild with applause.

Then Moore recalled a moving speech from another famous patriot – Patrick Henry.

"Our chains are forged!" he declared. "Their clanking may be heard [in the halls of Congress] on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable – and let it come! I repeat, we must let it come.

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace – but there is no peace. … Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? … Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

The room erupted in cheers and booming applause once more – this time lasting several minutes.

"This tea-party movement is big," Moore explained. "It's waking up our country. There is a battle around this great nation. Every one of you – black, white, young, old, Republican, Democrat, Christian and non-Christian – is part of that battle."

He continued, "We will either preserve our republic and our faith in God, or we'll have them taken from us. Go forth, armed with the holy cause of liberty."

As the speech ended, tea partiers streamed out of the banquet room doors, armed with copies of Moore's book, "So Help Me, God."

Ron Foreman, an attendee from Arkansas, reacted to Moore's speech:

"Outstanding!" he exclaimed.

St. Louis, Mo., resident Glenn O'Bryan called the speech "terrific," saying he was motivated to come to the convention by his love for the country.

O'Bryan said, "I'd like to see the tyranny put in check."

Jack and Joan Billman, residents of Greencastle, Ind., said they believed the speech was "very appropriate."

"Certainly the comparison between what took place with the founders and what needs to be taking place now is so very, very apparent," Jack told WND. "Everybody talks about the need for fewer taxes and smaller government. But if our politicians would just follow the Constitution, all of those problems would be taken care of."

Climategate Worsens

2010-02-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

Climategate spreads like an ozone hole

Scientists at the heart of the Climategate controversy face new allegations which cast further doubt about global warming. Analysis shows researchers had tried to suppress key details of their findings for twenty years.
New allegations swirl in Climategate, which began last November with an email leak at the University of East Anglia, suggesting that one of the world’s foremost centres for climate research had been manipulating data to prove the existence of man-made global warming.

Now, it turns out data manipulation has been going on since at least 1990.

Read more
The head of the university’s climate research unit, Professor Phil Jones, has come under fresh suspicion due to a paper he released 20 years ago, claiming urban warming wasn’t a factor in higher temperature readings he’d recorded. But he doesn’t seem to be able to show where his information came from.

“That research was paid for with public money so everyone should have access to it, and if we’re spending that kind of money to stop climate change then the fundamental data should be open to anyone who wants to check it,” International Climate Science Coalition executive director Tom Harris says.

That same paper was used as evidence in the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel has also recently come under fire for falsely claiming in one of its own reports that all Himalayan glaciers could completely melt down by 2035.

The head of the panel has refused to apologise, calling the error “an isolated mistake”. However, global warming skeptics say such occurrences mean we essentially know nothing about the climate.

“It means that we do not have a measure of how temperatures have changed over the last 50-100 years, that we can say, well, one year is warmer than the other but the relative amounts, like 2002 compared with the 1930’s, was that it warmer or colder, but we do not actually know,” Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction says.

More worrying, another case suggests the whole system of scientists reviewing their colleagues’ work has been corrupted. Some of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit refer to a paper that Professor Jones reviewed and deliberately suppressed.

What emerged was an analysis of data from weather stations around Russia’s Lake Baikal. It showed much less warming than Professor Jones’ own analysis using much the same data.

“The other things which they have been doing which are grossly unacceptable – is trying to prevent the publication of valid scientific opinion and research which goes against what they believe, and that is absolutely monstrous! So they not only suppress the scientific opinion they don’t like, but they actively avoid commissioning work which I’m certain would have appeared in print, but to the fact that they have a total grip and bias against anything they don’t agree with,” Corbyn adds.

The University of East Anglia continues to call its data “rock solid”.

These latest Climategate revelations show this scandal is far from over. And all through it, the voices of the skeptics are getting louder. They’re asking, if man-made climate change is such an unassailable fact, why does it have to be proven using manipulated data?

The Importance Of Our Constitution

2010-02-04T08:58:00.001-08:00

Our Sacred Honor ... to Support and Defend
By Mark Alexander

In 1776, an extraordinary group of men signed a document that affirmed their God-given right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." By attaching their signatures to our great Declaration of Independence, they, in effect, were signing their potential death warrants.

Indeed, the last line of our Declaration reads, "For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

Many of these men, and many of their countrymen, the first generation of American Patriots, would die fighting for American liberty.

A decade later, their liberty having been won at great cost, our Founders further codified their independence and interdependence by instituting yet another historic document, our Constitution.

The Constitution specifies in Article VI, clause 3:

"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution..."

Bound by Oath to support...

The Constitution also prescribes the following oath to be taken by the president-elect: "I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Preserve, protect and defend...

Commissioned and enlisted military personnel are also required by statute to "solemnly swear, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same...", though the officer's oath doesn't include any provision that they obey orders.

Against all enemies, foreign and domestic...

Notably, all these oaths mandate the preservation, protection, support and defense of our Constitution as ratified, not the so-called "living constitution" as amended by judicial activists populating what Thomas Jefferson predicted would become "the despotic branch."

While uniformed Americans serving our nation defend our Constitution with their lives, most elected officials debase it with all manner of extra-constitutional empowerment of the central government, not the least of which is the forced redistribution of income to benefit their constituency groups which, in turn, dutifully re-elect them.

Military service personnel who violate the Constitution are remanded for courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, while politicians who violate the Constitution are remanded for -- re-election.

On that note, the latest crop of Leftists on their way to Washington under the supervision of President-elect Barack Obama are destined to make a greater mockery of our Constitution than any administration in history. Clearly, Obama and his ilk have no history of honoring, or intention to honor, their oaths and, in fact, have no context for such honor.

A small cadre of liberals who believe themselves to be "patriots" have asked, "Can't I be a bona fide Patriot and support Barack Obama?"

In a word ... NO, unless in a state of solemn repentance.

In the spirit of charity, perhaps Obama supporters, who self-identify as patriots, are just grossly misinformed about our Constitution, our history and their own civic duty. Of course, they would likewise be grossly deluded about their identity, but perhaps the delusion is temporary.

I would suggest that Obama "patriots" are nothing more than "sunshine patriots," as Thomas Paine wrote, who "will in crisis, shrink from the service of his country."

At its core, the word "patriot" has direct lineage to those who fought for American independence and established our constitutional republic. That lineage has descended most directly through our history with those who have been entrusted "to support and defend" our Constitution -- more specifically, those who have been faithful to, and have abided by, that oath. As previously noted, by "our Constitution," I am referring to the United States Constitution, not the adulterated vestigial remains that liberals call "the living constitution."

I have taken oaths five times in the service of our country. But I did not have to take any oath to understand my obligations as a citizen "to support and defend" our Constitution.

So, does the title of "Patriot" apply to an individual who votes for a man who has not honored his public oaths of office previously, and has given no indication he intends to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same" as president -- a man who subscribes to the errant notion of a "living constitution" which, in his own words, "breaks free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution"?

No authentic Patriot would support those who violate their sacred oaths.

Unfortunately, in this most recent election, we saw even a handful of flag-rank military officers who have no more reverence for their oaths than Obama. However, they are the exception, not the rule.

Obama's mantra, "change," is a euphemism for constitutional abrogation -- an incremental encroachment on liberty until, at last, liberty is lost.

Our nation's second president, John Adams, warned, "A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

As for Obama's deception about his own patriotic pedigree, I commend the words of our nation's first president, George Washington: "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. ...[W]here is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths...?"

Regarding the Presidential Oath of Office, Justice Joseph Story wrote: "[T]he duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose." He wrote further that if the president does not honor his oath, his office "will be utterly worthless for ... the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people."

Of course, Barack Obama proposes to further constrain the rights of the people by advancing centralized government control by way of economic regulation and forced income redistribution, all in the name of "happiness, good order, and safety of the people," but in direct violation of his oath.

Some have suggested that since the election is over and Obama is the victor, we should accord him the honor due his office. But if he does not honor his constitutional oath, why would anyone extend him the honor of its highest constitutional office? Indeed, anyone having take that oath would be in direct violation of its mandate to "support and defend THE Constitution" should they support extra-Constitutional orders from superiors who do not honor their sacred oath.

The Fight For Free Speech

2010-02-02T09:23:00.001-08:00

First Court Challenge to Federal “Hate Crimes” Act Filed by Three Pastors and a Pro-Family Advocate

February 2, 2010

Religious - Holy Bible & FlagANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor Michigan, this morning filed a federal lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., challenging the constitutionality of the recently-enacted federal Hate Crimes Act. The Act criminalizes so-called “bias” crimes motivated by a person’s “actual or perceived” “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” and thus elevates those engaged in certain deviant sexual behaviors to a special, protected class of persons under federal law.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, on behalf of Pastor Levon Yuille, Pastor Rene Ouellette, Pastor James Combs, and Gary Glenn, the president of the American Family Association of Michigan (AFA-Michigan). [Read Complaint].

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center, and a former county prosecutor, commented, “There is no legitimate law enforcement need for this federal law. Of the 1.38 million violent crimes reported in the U.S. by the FBI in 2008, only 243 were considered as motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation. Moreover, Eric Holder himself testified at a Senate hearing that the states are doing a fine job in this area.”

Thompson continued, “This is part of the list of political payoffs to homosexual advocacy groups for support of Barack Obama in the last presidential election. The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin. It elevates those persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors, including pedophiles, to a special protected class of persons as a matter of federal law and policy.”

“Christians are taught to love the sinner, but hate the sin. In fact, the greatest threat of violence to ‘homosexuals’ comes not from Christians but from other ‘homosexuals, ’ according to statistics compiled by their own advocacy groups, ” said Thompson.

The Hate Crimes Act, cited as the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, ” was dubbed by its critics as the “Pedophile Protection Act, ” after an amendment to explicitly prohibit pedophilia from protection under the act was defeated by a majority of Democrats. The Act itself is poorly written, based on erroneous facts and internally incoherent principles.

Pastor Yuille is the Pastor of The Bible Church, which is located in Michigan. He is also the National Director of the National Black Pro-Life Congress and the host of Joshua’s Trail, a radio talk show that airs in Michigan and can be heard in parts of Canada. Pastor Yuille is often warned by his Canadian listeners that he will prosecuted under the new U.S. hate crimes law for his public ministry similar to how ministers and other religious persons in Canada are being silenced by that country’s “hate crimes” legislation. As an African-American, Pastor Yuille finds it offensive to equate the so-called “civil rights” struggle of persons who engage in homosexual behavior with the real civil rights struggle of African-Americans.

Pastor Ouellette is the Pastor of First Baptist Church of Bridgeport, Michigan, which has approximately 7,000 members. He is the author of five books as well as many pamphlets and Bible tracts. Pastor Ouellette travels across the country preaching God’s Word, which includes the Biblical teaching on homosexuality.

And Pastor Combs is the lead Pastor of Faith Church, The Point Church, The Rock Church, and The River Church, all of which are located in Michigan. Pastor Combs pastors approximately 10,000 church members. He too preaches the Biblical teaching on homosexuality as part of his public ministry.

The lawsuit alleges that this new provision of the federal hate crimes law violates the plaintiffs’ rights to freedom of speech, expressive association, and free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, and it violates the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. The lawsuit also alleges that Congress lacked authority to enact the legislation under the Tenth Amendment and the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.

The lawsuit expresses concern that the Hate Crimes Act “provides law enforcement with authorization and justification to conduct federal investigative and other federal law enforcement actions against Plaintiffs and others deemed to be opponents of homosexual activism, the homosexual lifestyle, and the homosexual agenda, ” thereby expanding “the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other federal law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies.”

Consequently, the new hate crimes law “subjects Plaintiffs to increased government scrutiny, questioning, investigation, surveillance, and intimidation on account of their strong, public opposition to homosexual activism, the homosexual lifestyle, and the homosexual agenda, thereby causing a tangible and concrete deterrent, inhibitory, and chilling effect on Plaintiffs’ activities and their rights to freedom of speech, expressive association, and the free exercise of religion” in violation of the United States Constitution.

Robert Muise, Senior Trial Counsel for TMLC who is handling the case, observed, “This new federal law promotes two Orwellian concepts. It creates a special class of persons who are ‘more equal than others’ based on nothing more than deviant, sexual behavior. And it creates ‘thought crimes’ by criminalizing certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions, and the involvement of such ideas, beliefs, and opinions in a crime will make it deserving of federal prosecution. Consequently, government officials are claiming the power to decide which thoughts are criminal under federal law and which are not.”

Under a related federal criminal statute, anyone who “aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures” the commission of an offense under the new hate crimes law is liable as if the person committed the violent crime.

All of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit take a strong public stand against the homosexual agenda, which seeks to normalize disordered sexual behavior that is contrary to Biblical teaching. As president of AFA-Michigan, Gary Glenn is often publicly described and listed as an “enemy” of those who promote “gay rights” and other aspects of the homosexual agenda. In 2006, for example, The Advocate, a “gay-rights” periodical, described Glenn as “ relentless foe of gay rights in every context.”

It is a favored tactic of homosexual activists to accuse pastors and other Christians of responsibility for violent acts on account of their public opposition to homosexual behavior.

The former director of policy for the Triangle Foundation, a Michigan-based homosexual lobby group that supported the new federal law, publicly stated, “We personally believe that the AFA may support the murder of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.”

The former executive director of the Triangle Foundation publicly stated the following regarding “hate crimes”: “The vocal anti-gay activists should be held accountable as accessories to these crimes because, many times, it is their rhetoric that led the perpetrators to believe that their crimes are OK. . . . If a criminal borrows a gun and then uses it to kill someone, the law considers the gun owner an accessory to the crime. So, too, are the people who own the words that incite violence.”

Thompson commented further, “Indeed, in many other jurisdictions, so-called ‘hate crimes’ legislation is being used to prosecute and jail pastors and priests for giving sermons or homilies that reflect the Christian view toward homosexuality. That’s why it was critical for us to file this lawsuit. This anti-Christian agenda must be stopped now.”

In 2007, when Congress was considering similar hate crimes legislation, a motion was made before the Committee on Rules in the House of Representatives to clarify that the printing, distribution, or public reading of the Bible was not prohibited by any provision of the proposed bill. The motion was defeated.

In addition to the First and Fifth Amendment claims, the lawsuit also claims that Congress lacked the authority under the Constitution to enact the hate crimes law because it is “legislation that purports to suppress violent crime and vindicate its victims, ” and “here is no better example of the police power, which the Founders denied Congress and reposed in the States, than the suppression of violent crime and the vindication of its victims.”

The lawsuit notes that the link between the activity punished by this new law and interstate commerce “is so attenuated that it places no real limit on Congress’ power to regulate.” Moreover, as the lawsuit points out, reports by the FBI in 2007 and 2008 indicate that only a fraction of 1% of all violent crimes committed in the United States each year are “bias” motivated on account of the victim’s sexual orientation.

In fact, Eric Holder, a supporter of the new federal law, was asked by Senator Orrin Hatch in a hearing whether there was any evidence of a trend that “hate crimes” were going unpunished at the State level. Holder stated without reservation that there was no such evidence and that, in fact, States were, by and large, doing a fine job in this area. Consequently, as the lawsuit alleges, there is no national problem associated with “bias” motivated crimes on account of the victim’s “sexual orientation” to warrant federal involvement.

Even in the this liberally-controlled Congress, to garner enough votes for passage, the politically-divisive “hate crimes” law had to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, even though the law is non-germane and non-related to defense. Senator John McCain stated in the Senate Congressional Record, “It is indeed, unfortunate, that we are using the brave men and women in uniform as leverage to pass hate crimes legislation.”

As Congressman Todd Akin noted, special prosecutions for so-called “hate crimes” are inherently divisive. Congressman Akin stated in the House Congressional Record, “[This new hate crimes law] increases hatred in America. . . . The law violates the most basic principle of law. Lady Justice is always supposed to have a blindfold across her face because, regardless of who you are when you appear before Lady Justice, . . Lady Justice does not notice. [The new hate crimes law] violates that basic principle. It creates animosity by elevating one group over another group; thus, it creates hatred.”

Through this lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek judicial reassurance by way of declaratory and injunctive relief that they can freely participate in their speech and related religious activities without being investigated or prosecuted by the government or becoming part of official records because of their Christian beliefs.

The Diagnosis

2010-02-01T08:54:00.001-08:00

SOMETHING WRONG IN AMERICA TODAY: LOU GEHRIG’S DISEASE

By Frosty Wooldridge

Yankee legend Lou Gehrig walked into the batter’s box for 2,130 baseball games. No other player in history, before Cal Ripkin, Jr., boasted such a remarkable feat as playing in an unimaginable unbroken streak of games. They called Gehrig the “Iron Horse.” He played hard, stayed honest, hit home runs and led the Yankees to more pennants after the exit of the great Babe Ruth.

But ‘something’ broke down his ability to run, hit and catch. No one understood his condition. On May 2, 1938, he took himself out of the game, which ended his phenomenal sweep at 2,130 games. Later, when diagnosed with ALS, now known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”, 62,000 Yankee fans, along with Babe Ruth, stood to hear the Iron Horse speak.

“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

“Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

“When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift — that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies — that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter — that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body — it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that's the finest I know.

“So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot to live for. Thank you.” — Lou Gehrig at Yankee Stadium, July 4, 1939

Gehrig exuded the caliber of America once common. Gehrig died two years later at 37 years of age.

THE UNITED STATES EPITOMIZES LOU GEHRIG’S DISEASE IN 2010

How could the United States, a very young country at 234 years of age find itself at the doorstep of incredible internal turmoil and fiscal collapse?

1. We disregard a $12 trillion national debt.

2. How about a $700 billion annual trade deficit?

3. Over 20 million unemployed citizens while Congress authorizes millions of jobs to be shipped out of our country via insourcing, outsourcing and offshoring.

4. Illegal employers defraud American workers and taxes as they employ 20 plus million illegal alien migrants for major profits while taxpayers pick up medical, educational and incarceration costs of $346 billion annually. ( Source: www.thesocialcontract.com)

5. Thirty five million citizens subsisting on food stamps.

6. Thirteen million American children living in poverty.

7. Two million citizens and non-citizens reside in prisons at taxpayer costs.

8. We borrow $2 billion daily from foreign countries to float our economy.

9. Our high schools nationwide suffer from 50 to 76 percent flunkout rates.

10. Our minorities wallow in pregnancies, crime, drugs, hopelessness and despair. Why? Joblessness for starters.

11. Our 535 members of Congress invite another 2.4 million unskilled, uneducated and culturally incompatible immigrants from disparate countries annually.

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12. Home-grown Muslim terrorists try to blow up themselves along with our citizens. Muslims behead or shoot their wives here in the USA. Father’s kill their daughters via honor killings in our country. U.S. mosques fund terrorism abroad. (Four being investigated in New York currently.)

13. And the list grows and grows on multiple levels.

“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.”—Bertram Gross

John W. Whitehead, the Rutherford Institute, said, “We are embroiled in global wars against enemies that seem to attack from nowhere. The amount of money spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is nearing $1 trillion and is estimated to total somewhere in the vicinity of $3 trillion before it’s all over. That does not take into account the ravaged countries that we occupy, the thousands of innocent civilians killed, or the thousands of American soldiers who have been killed or irreparably injured or who are committing suicide at an alarming rate.”

DISPLACING OURSELVES WITH DIVERSITY AND MULTICULTURALISM

When Congress and the media pitch catchwords like “multiculturalism”; “diversity”; “globalization”; and “one world government”—you discover nothing in those terms supports America and our culture, language and civilization.

On NPR Sunday, January 31, 2010, Jamie Tarabay, “Virginia Islamic schools expansion met protests”, told a story about the Islamic Saudi Academy demanding more expansion. But the townspeople wanted them shut down. Why?

Tarabay said, “A former valedictorian of the school is serving a life sentence for plotting to assassinate President Bush. A former principal was arrested because instead of reporting a complaint from one of his students about sexual abuse at home, he deleted the report and returned the child to her father.”

This happens right here in the United States. Our Congress imported an astounding eight million Muslims within 20 years. Their religion and their culture counter everything in America and its culture.

It’s like our Congress consists of a bunch of naive high school kids in a chemistry class. With no teacher in the room, everybody throws some chemicals into a big pot to see what happens. At some point, the chemicals erode the pot at the bottom or blow the entire room to kingdom come!

One look at Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami or Detroit and you will find a population river pouring in from all over the world—they speak everything but English and they could care less about America—multiculturalism’s finest hour.

Precious few Americans understand the ramifications of adding the projected 70 million immigrants to our civilization within 25 years. On a sociological level, environmental scale or cultural level—such numbers promise horrific consequences. If we continue along our current path, we will end up like Lou Gehrig: first incapacitated, and ultimately, taken out. (Refer back to the 13 points.)

The bulk of delinquent Congressional reps dare you to call their bluff this November. If you vote them back in, they will continue on the same destructive path.

We must vote only senators and House reps that will lead this civilization back toward viability. This means that most citizens must kick MOST of the current members of Congress out on their elitist/narcissistic rear-ends. For starters, we must enact a 10 year moratorium on all immigration into the United States. We need to take care of our citizens, our culture and our country. We cannot keep doing this to ourselves. Join www.numbersusa.com; www.thesocialcontract.com; www.fairus.org; www.capsweb.org; www.alipac.us; www.firecoalition.com