TALES FROM THE FISCAL CLIFF

IN 63 BC THE ROMAN STATESMAN MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO WAS ELECTED FIRST CONSUL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. ALMOST IMMEDIATELY HE WAS CONFRONTED WITH A SCEME HATCHED BY GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR TO TAKE PUBLIC LANDS AND GIVE THEM TO THE PLEBES IN ORDER TO WIN VOTES FOR A LONGTERM POLITICAL MAJORITY. IT IS AN EARLY BUT VIVID EXAMPLE OF REDISTRIBUTION OF THE PUBLIC WEALTH FOR POLITICAL GAIN AND POWER. CICERO WAS ABLE IN THE SHORT TERM TO STOP THESE AND OTHER PLOTS TO UNDERMIND THE ROMAN REPUBLIC BUT FAILED IN THE LONG RUN TO STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. THE 630 YEAR OLD REPUBLIC OF CINCINNATUS, SCIPIO AFRICANUS AND CATO THE ELDER ENDED NOT TOO MANY YEARS LATER IN AN ORGY OF ASSASSINATION, DICTATORSHIP AND CIVIL WAR. IT WAS REPLACED BY A EMPIRE WHERE POWER FLOWED FROM THE EMPEROR AND THE SENATE WAS REDUCED TO BEING A SYMBOL OF A LOST REPUBLIC.

THIS IS A CAUTIONARY TALE FROM HISTORY FOR PRESENT DAY AMERICA WHERE JUST LAST WEEK A PRESIDENT TRIED AT LEAST MORE THAN A FEW TIMES TO SEND THE NATION OVER THE FISCAL CLIFF IN ORDER TO ACQUIRE POWER VIA THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS OPPONENTS. HE THEN INTENDED TO USE THE CALAMITY, THAT HE FOR THE MOST PART CREATED,TO FURTHER UNDERMINE THE CONSTITUTION AND IN SO DOING STILL FURTHER INCREASE HIS POWER BY DENYING ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DISASTER AND OFFERING UP ASSISTANCE FROM THE GOVERNMENT TO SAFEGUARD PEOPLE FROM THE VERY DESTRUCTION HE HAD WROUGHT UPON THEM.

TALES FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL CLIFF

YOU HAVE PROBABLY HEARD BY NOW, THAT ROOT CANALS, COCKROACHES, HEAD LICE, COLONOSCOPIES AND FRANCE ARE MORE POPULAR THAN CONGRESS! THIS IS VERY BAD NEWS FOR THE NATION AND GOOD NEWS FOR A PRESIDENT WHO SEES THEM AND THE CONSTITUTION AS AN ANNOYANCE THAT HINDERS HIM FROM ACHIEVING ONE MAN RULE.

 

HIS CONTEMPT FOR THE CONSTITUTION HAS BEEN AMPLY DEMONSTRATED. HE HAS BEEN COMPLICIT IN OR HAS DIRECTLY VIOLATED MAJOR SECTION OF THE CONSTITUTION BY SUCH ACTIONS AS:

 

VIOLATING THE ORIGINATION CLAUSE WITH REGARD TO OBAMACARE, THE FISCAL CLIFF FIX AND NOW THREATENING TO UNILATERALY EXPAND THE DEBT CEILING …

BY VITIATING THE SEPARATION OF POWERS AND CHECKS AND BALANCES USING CZARS, EXECUTIVE ORDERS, AND REGULATIONS…

BY FAILING TO PASS A BUDGET SINCE 2009 AS REQUIRED BY LAW…

DEMOCRATS AND JEWS AND JEWISH DEMOCRATS

Thursday, September 20, 2012

WHY HAS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ABANDONED ME

Democrats and Jews and Jewish Democrats
by
Mark Meyer Appel http://www.thejewishstar.com/stories/Democrats-and-Jews-and-Jewish-Democrats,3566?page=1&content_source

BY
Mark Meyer Appel

I am a life long Democrat and a religious Jew. I have upon occasion, voted for Republicans or independents, but in the main I have stayed loyal to the party of FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, LBJ and Bill Clinton. I have done so out of a profound belief that Democrats best personify all the values that we as a people have come to stand for throughout the Diaspora, and since the founding of the State of Israel.

My parents were survivors of the Shoah. They came to America with their shattered live and lost families, met, married and gave birth to my sister and myself. As soon as they arrived they became Democrats because that is where immigrants, refugees and survivors found a welcoming political home in post war America. There never was a day when they did not bless this country for giving them the freedom to practice their religion without fear. For most of my life the thought of being anything but a Democrat was as anathema to me as converting to another religion.

No Taxation Due to Misrepresentation

We live in revolutionary times... not the nostalgic grasping at linkage with the Patriots of 1776 that many have emotionally tried to attain during the last three and a half years, but a real and tangible moment of revolution where we may have to do unimaginable things to end the tyranny of a government with an insatiable appetite for power and a lust for control over every aspect of our lives.

By courtesy of the chief justice and the Obama administration we now have attained the progressive Holy Grail...a tax for being born (or more starkly put... for breathing). To compliment this we also have a variety of "death panels" whose job it will be to decree anonymously from the shadows who gets what treatment (if at all) and when. This is what is known as being "had by the short hairs" coupled with a knife to the throat.

The new taxing power bestowed by the court now gives the government the ability to order us to do anything and if we don't, to be punished by a tax euphemistically labeled as a penalty. I yearn for the good old days when it was only the abuse of the commerce clause we had to worry about with regard to gutting the constitution.

The White House true to form (for having no class) ignored the fact the PPRACA was sold not as a tax and the first reaction was from Patrick Gaspard, white house political director who eloquently opined "it's constitutional bitches". This was followed by white house chief of staff Jack Lew and the always dependable Pelosi who said... not it's not a tax, it's a penalty... We didn't lie to you. All they left out was the upcoming executive order that the funeral industry will soon be nationalized.

It is equally to be deplored that the republicans, howling with fury over what they view as the treachery of John Roberts, had no coherent response when asked if you get rid of "ObamaCare/ObamaTax" what will you replace it with. We pay these people and they are to some degree more or less, incompetent, thuggish, corrupt, disingenuous, immoral and dangerous. These I may add are their good points. Oh yes they also steal!

Obamacare Tax Increase Given Mixed Approval by Supremes

Fact: The Supreme court ruled that the only way Obamacare could be constitutional is that the mandate is in fact just another tax, which congress has the right to pass. More importantly they said you can't compel someone to buy health insurance just so you can then regulate it under the misused commerce clause. Therefore the estimated $500 billion tax increase is by far the largest increase in the history of the world. That, coupled with the $500 billion cut in medicare payments gives Obama $1 trillion which he will be able to leverage into $5 trillion of new debt to further his socialist agenda. Moreover, now that the limits of the commerce clause have been defined, hundreds of laws passed based on it will surely be open to judicial review. It could be a messy next 4 years.

As for Obamacare, I really believe that the American people through their Congress, will not let healthcare degenerate into the horrible state that Britain and Canada have fallen into. It will need a lot of tweeking as the problems show up, but it will happen because nearly all politicians do agree on the biggest points of the law. The rest can be hammered out.

Obama's God Complex

Yvonne Ridley





The fatal shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin shocked a nation, inspired tens of thousands to march for justice and even prompted the US President to declare, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon".

It took nearly six weeks for George Zimmerman, the Florida man accused of killing the teenager, to be arrested and charged with second-degree murder after enormous pressure from the public.

Zimmerman - the captain of a Neighbourhood Watch group - pursued Trayvon because he said that he thought he was acting "suspicious" and "up to no good". And that is exactly the same excuse used by President Barack Obama as he justifies ticking off names on a "kill list" for drone attacks.

While Obama called on federal, state and local authorities to work together as part of the investigation into the killing of Trayvon, just who is going to investigate the President for his extra-judicial killings? He is a man out of control, and while his predecessor justified his actions with a catch-all “God told me to do it”, this president thinks he is God, making decisions about who should live and who should die. If he was the head of a banana republic the UN Security Council would be meeting as I write to bring about regime change, with the International Criminal Court on standby with a writ to charge Obama with war crimes.

But the USA is not a banana republic - not yet, anyway - and Obama is the head of a superpower and supposed to be the most powerful man in the world; the man who in 2009 went to Cairo and convinced us all that he was going to engage positively with the Muslim world from the Middle East to Asia. However, the government of Israel no doubt feels emboldened and empowered by such belligerence from its main sponsor and supporter in the heart of the Muslim world.

Looking back at that historic day all I can visualise is a fox being heralded and saluted by his victims as he walks up the ramp into the chicken coop.

IN HOMS, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM

IN HOMS, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SCREAM Homs has been under siege for 19 days. The tanks and artillery of Bashir al-Assad have formed a ring of steel around the city where the revolt against the regime first drew breath. For most of this period as well as for most of the last year, the world has depended on amateur videos over the Inter Net for information on a war by a Government against its own people that appeared so vicious as to be beyond belief. Foreign journalists and media have been banned by Assad and his Alawite henchmen to keep the world ignorant of the atrocities that have sparred no one.

VADA A BORDO GOP

VADA A BORDO GOP!!!! Right now the American ship of state resembles the Costa Concordia more than it does “a shining city on the hill”. Our economy is in shambles despite small decreases in unemployment due to people leaving the workforce altogether. Our national debt is 102% of our GDP putting us in a class with Greece and Italy. Our uncontrolled government spending is around 25% of GDP when it should be between 18% to 20% . The Congress has not passed a budget in over a thousand days and over 25 budget and jobs bills passed by the House of Representatives have been pronounced dead on arrival by Harry Reid when they land in the Senate. President Obama vetoes the XL Keystone pipeline after all environmental tests have been met… killing 20,000 jobs or more and his out of control EPA threatens the most prosperous state in the nation…North Dakota… with regulations that will stop oil fracking in it’s tracks.

The Experiment of our Founding Fathers

I've noticed a revisionist attempt to desparage the "radical" ideals of the founding fathers, ideals which are now recognized as the basis of modern conservatism in the United States. No one called them conservatives back then and they probably couldn't imagine what Mormonism would become either. Looking back, with one eye or two, we would certainly call them "conservatives" by our modern day definition. Even as certain individual founders might have preferred a "king", the experiment in democracy was only that, an experiment. What it became as it was tested in actual practice, is what it really was and still is today, conservatism. To single out one moment in time to label our founders and their evolving principles in any other way, is simply not valid. And that is Universally accepted, but probably not University accepted.

THE AGE OF "SOYLENT GREEN"

If you live long enough, a lot of science fiction, begins to resemble reality. David Brooks' Bastille Day NYT's essay this past July entitled "Death and Budgets" is the kind of sophisticated sophistry that the "chattering classes" of the right and left love to embrace over cocktails to prove that there really is common ground on issues of importance. In this instance however it is the effort to find moral consensus for what constitutes a life of quality and then shoehorn it into politics,policy, legislation and regulation.The insertions of bookkeepers with lampshades between Doctors and patients and their families is really a predictable result of living beyond our means and looking for the lowest of low hanging fruit to balance our national ledger.

CONFESSIONS OF A CONSERVATIVE… CIVIL LIBERTIES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The persistent accusation that conservatives are not sympathetic to and are even hateful towards individual civil and human rights for all individuals who live within broadly acceptable norms of lawful behavior  is  I believe, either not true or overstated for emotional or political reasons.
Some in the LGBT community for example, are currently making that charge due to certain campaign ads by Gov. Rick Perry in Iowa.  Others cite the reactions to  the efforts of Secy. of State Clinton to protect the civil and human rights of  such persons via  economic, political  and diplomatic sanctions by the US, within the over 70 nations that now criminalize gay and lesbian people.

While it is ironic that Secy. Clinton makes this effort while addressing the inappropriately named UN Human Rights Council in Geneva,  her efforts are important nonetheless, and should be supported by all people who believe in the basic natural  rights of  all individuals.  Many if not most conservatives, don’t like addressing rights on a group basis.  Yet history has an unpleasant way of reminding us that the most prevalent way of demonizing individuals is by demonizing the “group” they either identify with or are associated with by others.  Hence the struggle for equality and at times survival often must begin with group identity but should always end with individual liberty.