tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54923108828511999692024-02-20T07:04:15.541-05:00Wolf HowlingIt is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
-- Dean William IngeGWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.comBlogger3105125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-6482605387882773742016-07-05T19:17:00.001-04:002016-07-05T19:17:33.662-04:00Hillary, The FBI & A Travesty Of Justice<br />
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<blockquote><blockquote><p><i>“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”</i></p></blockquote><p>
<b><i>– FBI Director James Comey, 5 July 2016, announcing that the FBI had concluded its investigation of Hillary's handling of our nation's classified information and would not recommend that DOJ file charges</i></b> (full text <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/text-of-fbi-director-comeys-statement-on-clinton-emails-2016-07-05">here</a>).</p></blockquote><p>
I could not believe this morning's press conference. First, FBI Director James Comey laid out facts establishing that Hillary Clinton violated our laws regarding classified information. Then, he said that he would not recommend prosecution. Good God, we are now living in a banana republic. The politically connected are above the law.<br /><br />
Hillary Clinton set up a private e-mail system in order to hide her activities while Secretary of State from being made public pursuant to FOIA requests and legal process. She sent and received classified information across her private system, she stored the information on her private system, and the system was not only subject to hacking, but being run by people almost certainly without the security clearances to allow them such access. She should be in jail for life plus several centuries. Had anyone else done this, they would be.<br /><br />
What Comey did to exonerate Hillary was make up his own set of “straw men” laws, then burn them down. Let me explain.<br /><br />
The facts Comey laid out in his press conference can only be described as damning. They don't present a judgment call, they present jury questions under at least three statutes.<br /><br />
Here are the facts that Comey laid out in his speech. All are quotations, with my comments in brackets:</p>
<blockquote><p>1. From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification.<br /><br />
2. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent. [I have never seen information “up-classified” during my decade of working with classified information. I suspect that these were all emails sent from foreign officers directly to Clinton for her eyes only, and that the State Dept. is taking the position that, while the information in them is clearly sensitive, Clinton – who should have classified them – did not. Thus they cannot serve as the basis for prosecution. I find that highly questionable, but at this point, to quote a scurrilous as of yet unconvicted felon, “what difference does it make?”]<br /><br />
3. The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014.<br /><br />
4. “We found seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. [We knew of at least two e-mail chains that included this information. The investigation shows it was worse than we thought.]<br /><br />
5. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. [That kills Hillary's best defense, that these email ended up on her system without her knowledge out of mere negligence]<br /><br />
6. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. [In other words, Hillary's good heart, empty head defense is bullshit.]<br /><br />
7. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).<br /><br />
8. None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail. [Comey fails to address whether the people responsible for and with access to these servers had adequate security clearances. That is an important point that he ignored.]<br /><br />
9. [W]e assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account. [So much for the claim that the absence of evidence means that she was not hacked. So what happens if Iran, Russia, China, and a host of other nations now have all of Hillary's e-mails, even those that the FBI was not able to reconstruct from the “wiped” servers? And what if those emails contain damning statements about which she could be blackmailed?]<br /><br />
10. Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it. [Thank you, Director Comey, for making clear a point that everyone who has ever held a security clearance understands, but which Hillary deliberately tried to obfuscate for the many ignorant of how the system operates]</p></blockquote><p>
At least Comey put the lie to Clinton's many claims regarding this email system. Hillary's claim that the information was not marked classified was always a red herring to fool those many useful idiots who wanted to believe her innocent. Further, Comey made clear that anyone in Hillary's position knew or should have known that the information they were discussing was sensitive and should have been handled as classified material. Indeed, with those two issues settled, the question of whether Hillary should be prosecuted should have been a slam dunk.<br /><br />
Yet Comey declined. Why?</p>
<blockquote><p>Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. Prosecutors necessarily weigh a number of factors before bringing charges. There are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent. Responsible decisions also consider the context of a person’s actions, and how similar situations have been handled in the past.<br /><br />
In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.</p></blockquote><p>
Comey misstated the applicable laws. Under his formulation of new security law, Hillary could only be convicted if she was intentionally divulging our national secrets to a foreign party or the press. The fact that she broke every actual law hundreds if not thousands of times, that she did so in order to hide her activities in violation of other laws, and the fact that she destroyed several thousand government records is meaningless to Comey. That is not the **** law.<br /><br />
Let's match the facts up with the laws Hillary violated. The laws at issue are:<br /><br />
<b>
18 USC 793 – Gathering, Transmitting or Losing Defense Information</b><br />
(f) Whoever . . . having lawful possession or control of any document . . . or information, relating to the national defense, (1) – through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior office ------ Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.<br /><br />
<b>18 USC 1924 - Unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material</b><br />
(1) Whoever, being an officer . . . of the United States, and, by virtue of his office . . . becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both<br /><br />
<b>18 USC 1519 - Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy</b><br />
Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.<br /><br />
Let's match facts to law now.<br /><br />
Under 18 USC 793(f), Hillary had lawful possession of top secret documents which, by definition, relate to national defense. According to Comey, any reasonable person in her position would have known this. And yet she uses her private system to send and receive e-mails discussing this information. In addition, she stored those emails on a private server that was not the “proper place of custody.” She is guilty of violating this statute more than eight times. Whether she intended to make the information available to foreign nations to the detriment of our nation is wholly irrelevant. The standard is whether she was grossly negligent. And as pointed out below, the purpose of that standard is to make sure that people entrusted with our nation's secrets take required measures to safeguard them. As Comey states explicitly, Clinton did not.<br /><br />
Under 18 USC 1924 (1), with Comey saying that Hillary knew that she was dealing with classified information and that markings are irrelevant to this law, Hillary doesn't even have a bare patina of a defense against this statute. She intentionally retained classified information at an unauthorized location. Period.<br /><br />
Then there is 18 USC 1519. Oh my word. Comey doesn't give us enough information to fully assess this one, but if she destroyed tens of thousands of documents that were in fact government records, the likelihood of her being in violation of this statute is extremely high. Indeed, Comey appears to ignore the interplay between Clinton's actions, the Benghazi committees that were seeking documents while Hillary was still in office, and the various FOIA law suits. If any of those emails were responsive to the Congressional investigations or the FOIA lawsuits, Hillary should be facing multiple felony counts. I would be amazed if Hillary does not stand in violation of this statute hundreds, if not thousands of times over.<br /><br />
Bottom line, we now live in a nation that the progressive left has turned into a banana republic. Every day this woman spends outside of a jail cell is an affront to justice and the rule of law in this nation.<br /><br />
Looking around the internet, I see several others have reached similar conclusions.<br /><br />
Rudy Giulaiani:<br /><br /> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ROI-n8gkCLI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />
Austin Bay: <a href="http://observer.com/2016/07/james-comey-sells-out/">James Comey Sells Out</a>
</p><blockquote><p>Today, the FBI sold out the Rule of Law in America. After describing clear evidence of extensive mishandling of classified national security information, FBI Director James Comey announced that the FBI will not recommend indicting former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. This is naked crony government, ugly and exposed. Comey’s decision will go down as one of the government’s worst assaults on truth in its War on Honesty.<br/><br />
Today’s press conference was, in many respects, an exercise in legal and cognitive dissonance. Comey acknowledged Clinton sent and received Top Secret emails that “any reasonable person” understands not to discuss on an unclassified system.<br /><br />
Red flags? Excuse me, sir—that’s a crime</p></blockquote><p>
Andrew McCarthy: <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook">FBI Rewrites Federal Law To Let Hillary Off The Hook</a></p>
<blockquote><p>There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18) . . .<br /><br />
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.</p></blockquote><p>
<a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/comey-to-address-the-media-this-morning.php">Paul Mirengoff (Powerline)</a>: "Comey simply ignored the statutory standard he laid out. A first year associate at a law firm wouldn’t dare present an analysis like this."<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/comey-comedy-comey-comity.php">Scott Johnson (Powerline)</a>: "Comey’s additional assertion that the applicable laws have never been enforced under these facts is inexplicable. Have we ever had a case remotely similar to this one? What we have here is Comey comity with the Clinton exception to the criminal laws."<br /><br />
Chris Cizzilla (Wapo): <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/05/hillary-clintons-email-problems-might-be-even-worse-than-we-thought/">Hillary Clintons E-Mail Problems Might Be Even Worse Than We Thought</a></p>
<blockquote><p>FBI Director James B. Comey dismantled large portions of Clinton's long-told story about her private server and what she sent or received on it during a stirring 15-minute news conference, after which he took no questions. While Comey exonerated Clinton, legally speaking, he provided huge amounts of fodder that could badly hamstring her in the court of public opinion. . . .<br /><br />
It’s hard to read Comey’s statement as anything other than a wholesale rebuke of the story Clinton and her campaign team have been telling ever since the existence of her private email server came to light in spring 2015. She did send and receive classified emails. The setup did leave her — and the classified information on the server — subject to a possible foreign hack. She and her team did delete emails as personal that contained professional information.<br /><br />
Those are facts, facts delivered by the Justice Department of a Democratic administration. And those facts run absolutely counter to the narrative put forth by the Clinton operation: that this whole thing was a Republican witch-hunt pushed by a bored and adversarial media. . . .</p></blockquote>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-44878121673270308322016-03-16T20:39:00.000-04:002016-03-16T20:49:21.047-04:00Trump, Clinton, The American Republic & The Ides Of March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdPRz-AGt5oT5YDd8WhTAgVJnBg5VvjV2fgnoshQHh_jPeHWT7B8Q0MDzhRlWcVobk4bOFRe0bfbOgpq4x4zlQiBfo9wjxX7DooMglpRP5HlJgH7HhGQh-btwbQRzdQLjekT_twz1DWpv/s1600/Caesar+15+Mar+44+BC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDdPRz-AGt5oT5YDd8WhTAgVJnBg5VvjV2fgnoshQHh_jPeHWT7B8Q0MDzhRlWcVobk4bOFRe0bfbOgpq4x4zlQiBfo9wjxX7DooMglpRP5HlJgH7HhGQh-btwbQRzdQLjekT_twz1DWpv/s400/Caesar+15+Mar+44+BC.jpg" /></a></div><br/>
<blockquote><blockquote><p><i><b>Caesar:</b> Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music cry "Caesar!" Speak, Caesar is turn'd to hear.</p></p>
<b>Soothsayer:</b> Beware the ides of March.<br/><br/>
<b>Caesar:</b> What man is that?<br/><br/>
<b>Brutus:</b> A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.</p></i></blockquote><p>
<b>Julius Caesar</b> Act 1, scene 2, 15–19</p></blockquote><p>
On the 15th of March, 44 B.C., the Roman Republic signed its death warrant when the Senators conspired to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/12193529/The-Ides-of-March-The-assassination-of-Julius-Caesar-and-how-it-changed-the-world.html">kill Julius Caesar</a>. It was perhaps the most famous political assassination in history. It certainly was an inflection point in world history, marking the demise of the Roman Republic and its degeneration into rule by emperors. Somehow, I think we are seeing a variant on that history play out today on both the left and the right. The election of Trump could well spell the end our Republic. The plot to steal the nomination from him at a contested convention would surely be the end of the Republican Party. And the refusal to indict Hillary would be a de facto end to our nation as a nation of laws existing under the Constitution.<br/><br/>
The nation has just suffered through nearly eight years seeing what rule by a progressive left ideologue looks like -- a combination of extra-constitutional rule, cronyism, and identity politics reaching to its ludicrous conclusions. We have an economy that is failing a declining middle class and has been propped up -- barely and only -- by a Fed running the printing presses non-stop and now considering negative interest rates. And Obama will leave the White House in 2017 with America in a much more precarious position in terms of national security -- his insane deal to give Iran a glide path to a nuclear arsenal being the suicidal cherry on top.<br/><br/>
Much of what the Obama and the progressive left have accomplished has been enabled by a Court system whose progressive members consider themselves a politburo not bound by the Constitution or democracy, by closed public sector unions that pump incredible sums of laundered taxpayer money back into politics on behalf of progressives, an education system that indoctrinates for progressivism, a system of crony capitalism that operates to disadvantage the middle class and crush entrepreneurship, and by a progressive regulatory bureaucracy that operates outside of the Constitution, passing rules - none voted on by Congress yet still with the force of law -- that are working fundamental change to our nation.<br/><br/>
I will admit to high hopes coming into the 2016 election. If you look hard at most of these issues, you will see that they are systemic problems that can only be solved by affirmative political action. Reining in the court system requires action by Congress, as does ending closed sector public unions and putting the regulatory bureaucracy wholly under Congressional control. And I had high hopes that this year, the pendulum would swing far enough to the right that we could elect a conservative for President who would address these systemic issues. Cruz, I thought and still think, understood all of these issues and would be most likely to address them. That said, we had 17 candidates on the Republican side at the start this year and almost all of them would have made decent presidents, if not as effective as Cruz. Rubio understood the national security picture best of all of them. Fiorina understood the problems with cronyism, regulation and Congressional accounting. Carson was an honorable man whose heart was in the right place. Even the weakest of the lot, Kasich and Bush, could have been expected to govern at least as milquetoast centrists, addressing none of the systemic problems but at least making none of them worse.<br/><br/>
Instead we get Donald Trump, a narcissist megalomaniac and snake oil salesman extraordinaire. He is a progressive crony capitalist wearing the coat of a Republican because it suits his needs of the moment. He is Obama's mirror image in white face. He is the ultimate black swan. I do not expect a Trump, if elected, to address any of the systemic issues facing our nation. Indeed, his understanding of the issues seems about on par with a modern high school student, so what he will do in any particular situation is an unknown though his knee jerk seems to be to the progressive left. Nor do I expect him in any case to be any more of an effective leader than was Schwarzennager in California or Ventura in Minnesota. Victor Davis Hanson makes the point <a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/2016/03/16/2016-the-year-that-americas-ongoing-cultural-degradation-merged-with-politics/">in a recent article</a> that Trump is, at least, no more debased or worse than any other of the Democrats who have held the Presidency since 1961 and the ascension of JFK. True enough, and 20 years ago I would have broken out the popcorn for a Trump candidacy. But this comes at a time when the progressive left is pushing hard to take a permanent position of dominance and we are in a very precarious position on all fronts. I agree with Thomas Sowell (see <a href="http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell030116.php3#zMUB0lJe82XgcqD3.99">here</a> and <a href="http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell030316.php3">here</a>) that our nation no longer has the luxury of time to absorb another national leadership / political disaster:</p>
<blockquote><p>The "Super Tuesday" primaries may be a turning point for America — and quite possibly a turn for the worse. After seven long years of domestic disasters and increasing international dangers, the next President of the United States will need extraordinary wisdom, maturity, depth of knowledge and personal character to rescue America.<br/><br/>
Instead, if the polls are an indication, what we may get is someone with the opposite of all these things, a glib egomaniac with a checkered record in business and no track record at all in government — Donald Trump.<br/><br/>
If so, the downward trajectory of America over the past seven years may well continue on into the future, to the point of no return. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
My fear is not that Trump will be an existential disaster as a President -- though I think he would be disaster. My real fear is that he will be ineffective, address none of the systemic problems, and yet be painted as the embodiment of all things conservative by a progressive media. After four years of Trump, I am afraid that it would be the death knell for the conservative movement and assure our national suicide with the ascendancy of the progressive left.<br/><br/>
Having said all of that, there are various people talking about denying Trump the nomination at a contested convention. Indeed, Gov. Kasich, with all of a total of I believe it's 88 or so delegates at the moment, is <a href="http://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20160316/kasichs-hopes-rest-on-contested-convention">justifying staying in the race under precisely that scenario</a>. He is living in a dangerous fantasy land. <br/><br/>
Perhaps if we arrive in July at a close delegate count without anyone having won the nomination outright with a 50% + 1 delegate count, then a contested convention might be justified. But if Trump is significantly ahead in the delegate count as seems likely and the Republican leadership denies him the nomination, that would be the end for a Republican Party already seen as being completely out of touch with its voting base. Indeed, the rise of Trump can largely be tied to the fact that Republicans in Congress have been completely ineffective in carrying out -- or even trying to carry out -- the wishes of the voters who elected them to office in wave elections. As much as I see Trump as being very likely the end for the conservative movement, shenanigans by the Republican leadership to deny him the nomination at the convention should he prove the clear favorite would absolutely spell the end for the Republican Party. It truly would be the equivalent of Rome's political class assassinating Julius Caesar.<br/><br/>
A last note on Trump. The progressive left seems to believe that they have the freedom to shut down all speech with which they disagree. They have been able to get away with this most notably on progressive college campuses because the administrations agree with their positions. They are now seeking to export their tactics into society at large and shut down Trump -- with <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/16/anti-trump-groups-threaten-largest-civil-disobedience-action-of-the-century/">grandiose plans</a> for much bigger disruption in the future. They succeeded in Chicago, with Trump cancelling his appearance there because of security concerns. And to the extent that there has been some violence involving protestors at Trump rallies, some have sought to blame Trump for this. That is utter horse manure. Trump is not responsible for progressives who believe that they are entitled to disrupt his speech, nor for the response of Americans who refuse to acquiesce to these progressive tactics. As David French wrote recently in <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432831/donald-trump-political-violence-the-left-double-standard">National Review</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>
It will be impossible, over the long term, to maintain peace and even national unity if elite media and the Democratic party continue to condone and even encourage political violence and the systematic violation of individual rights by its radical progressive base. From Occupy to Ferguson to Baltimore to the unrest on campus, Americans have watched the liberal establishment trip over itself to express solidarity and sympathy with protesters who’ve burned, looted, shut down roads and parks, and violated the fundamental rights of American citizens.<br/><br/>
. . . For the better part of two years, millions of Americans have watched as violence and disruption actually work. At college campuses, radical students and allied professors and administrators will shout down dissenters, intimidate fellow students, disrupt the educational process, and win. In the streets of American cities, protesters will riot, vandalize, block traffic, and invade shops and restaurants, and they win. When the narratives (“Hands up, don’t shoot,” or “It’s open season” on black males) are debunked by facts, protesters still prevail. Police tactics change even as the national murder rate seems set for its largest spike in 25 years. In the nation’s 50 largest cities, 770 more people were murdered in 2015 than in the previous year. Yet with the exception of a few courageous progressives, the Left largely hails this unrest. Even riots are excused or minimized by leading figures in the liberal intelligentsia, and mob actions that violate the free-speech rights of fellow citizens — by shouting down or shutting down events the Left doesn’t like — are whitewashed as “peaceful protest.” . . .</p></blockquote>
<p>
To try to paint violence at Trump rallies as Trump's fault is one hundred eighty degrees of wrong. One of two things must happen. Either the police must act to arrest these individuals and they be held accountable under the law or they need, in fact to be subject to real violence. The nonviolence of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr. only worked because they were appealing to a moral people on the other side. There is no morality on the progressive left beyond a desire for power and control. If they are to be given free reign to act without legal consequence, than they must be made to pay a physical consequence. That or we must bow down to progressives who are willing to use quasi-violent tactics to achieve their goals. It is as simple as that.<br/><br/>
And that is the perfect lead-in to the other layer in this crap sandwich, Hildabeast, the likely nominee of the left. This is a woman who should be indicted and facing a lifetime in jail for her utter disregard of our national security. I have held a security clearance. I have worked with classified material. I am quite familiar with the need to safeguard such material, the lengths to which all people who hold such clearances are required to go, and the seriousness with which it is treated. This is an issue that transcends politics. Those on the left who are willing to give her a pass on this are both an utter disgrace and traitors to our Constitutional system, predicated as it is on the foundation that no one is above the law. <br/><br/>
There is enough information in the public domain now to say categorically that Hillary Clinton has violated multiple laws regarding the handling of classified materials and should be facing indictment. ANYONE else who had done what she has done would be, at best, out on bail and awaiting trial. That the FBI appears to be slow walking this investigation at the moment is doing a tremendous disservice to our nation. That the media is letting her off the hook by allowing her to continue to make the claim that, because the information on her server was not marked classified, that has the slightest thing to do with her criminal negligence is doing a tremendous disservice to our nation. If she is not indicted, then we are no longer a nation of laws and it is time for blood in the streets.<br/><br/>
This year should have been an inflection point spelling the end of the progressive toxins built into our system of government over the past century. Instead, we are reliving 44 BC, when the Republic hung in the balance and Rome went down the path to its dissolution. God help us and our nation.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-61624873385009763132015-07-04T18:38:00.001-04:002016-07-04T03:10:59.973-04:00July 4, 1776 - The Declaration of Independence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg366qTIZ3ViXueBghcK8amMmHifN_DF4LbKqcnQRVisBOjX30lksktPex9sdB-pLK2XJTf4p3sT3ZUrnoA___UjP_24_HspHRs1H-iMJkJe2RYJGx5PEznJ2ukDxaQ9Cx_zLbuU0G8AUVU/s1600/Declaration+of+Independence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg366qTIZ3ViXueBghcK8amMmHifN_DF4LbKqcnQRVisBOjX30lksktPex9sdB-pLK2XJTf4p3sT3ZUrnoA___UjP_24_HspHRs1H-iMJkJe2RYJGx5PEznJ2ukDxaQ9Cx_zLbuU0G8AUVU/s400/Declaration+of+Independence.jpg"></a></div><p><br /><br />
Happy Fourth of July. On this day in 1776, our Founders signed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence">The Declaration of Independence</a>, severing ties with Great Britain and announcing the birth of a new nation.<br /><br />
On July 4, 1776, the American colonists were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War">then in the midst of a war</a> that would see battles in all thirteen colonies, with the outcome of the war very much in doubt right up until victory came in the aftermath of British General Cornwallis's <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cornwallis-surrenders-at-yorktown">Surrender at Yorktown, Virginia in 1781</a>. For the British, the American Revolution ignited a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War#Britain_vs._France.2C_Spain.2C_Mysore.2C_and_Holland_1778.E2.80.931783">world war with France, Spain and Holland</a> that would not end until 1782.<br /><br />
The American Revolution began long before 1775. John Adams would later write that it began 1761, when British officials began a corrupt, concerted and heavy handed effort to end smuggling and increase revenues in the colonies, with these efforts falling hardest in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The period between 1761 and 1774 saw tensions increase steadily between Britain and their colonies as Parliament and King George III attempted to exert ever greater control. The final straw came when Parliament placed a tax on East India Tea and had it shipped to the ports of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston. It was a negligible tax, designed not to raise revenue, but to establish the precedent that Parliament had the right to tax the colonists, irrespective of the fact that each colony, by virtue of their respective charters, held the right to set internal taxes, and irrespective of the fact that the colonists were not represented in Britain's Parliament.<br /><br />
The tea was turned back at every port but Boston. There, the Royal Governor Hutchinson and his family had a financial stake in the tea and he refused to return it to Britain. On the night before the tea would, by law, have to be unloaded, colonists disguised as Indians raided the ships in port and dumped all of the tea in Boston Harbor. Britain's response was draconian. They passed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts">Intolerable Acts</a>, among other things unilaterally suspending colonial government in Massachusetts. Most importantly, Britain, bent on punishing all of Boston for the Boston Tea Party, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Port_Act">established a complete naval blockade of Boston's harbor</a>.<br /><br />
It wasn't long after that the actual shooting war began. On April 19, 1775, the British marched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Concord">to Concord, Massachusetts</a> in order to disarm the colonists. Along the way, British soldiers fired upon some local colonial militia at Trenton. The alarm bells sounded, and thousands of American militia mustered. The British found themselves marching through a gauntlet of fire on the twenty mile march back to Boston, and thereafter found themselves surrounded. Two months later, the British forces planned an offensive to break out of Boston, but the colonials learned of it and took the initiative. In the dead of night on 16 June, the colonials occupied and dug in on Breeds Hill, overlooking Boston. The British had no choice but to attack. In what would later be called, incorrectly, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bunker_Hill">Battle of Bunker Hill</a>, the British won a Pyrrhic victory. They ultimately dislodged the Americans, but only when the Americans ran out of powder and shot. It was the costliest battle of war for the British. <br /><br />
And yet, it was by no means clear, until July 2, 1776 that the colonists would declare themselves independent of Britain. When the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Continental_Congress">Second Continental Congress</a> convened in May, 1775, the colonists still saw themselves as loyal citizens of Britain and their individual colonies. They had no desire to permanently join together the thirteen colonies. The colonies united simply for defense. Their was not independence, but a return to the pre-1761 relationship that the individual colonies enjoyed with Britain.<br /><br />
In the end, it was not the colonists who declared war on Britain and started a revolution in the lead-up to 4 July, 1776; it was the other way around. For over a decade, Britain had been passing ever more draconian laws and taxes which would have had the effect, if meekly accepted, of stripping from the colonists all of the rights enjoyed by British citizens living in Britain proper. Then, in the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party, it was King George himself who decided that "blows should decide the issue." It was the King of Britain who declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion, who sent the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century to the colonies to establish military rule, who authorized a naval war on the colonies, and who resolutely refused all formal entreaties from the colonists to engage in peaceful discussions. It was Britain's forces in the colonies that started the shooting war by forcing the colonist's hand at Lexington and Concord and that soon thereafter committed acts of pure terrorism in the attacks on civilian targets, including the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Falmouth">burning of Falmouth</a>. It was Britain that allied with the Indians to attack the colonists from the west, and it was Britain that sought to use slaves as a military force against the colonists.<br /><br />
What the colonists were willing to fight and die for was not some new concept of freedom or rights, but rather the ancient rights of British citizens won over half a millenia and enumerated in such documents as the <a href="http://www.constitution.org/eng/magnacar.htm">Magna Carta</a> (1215), <a href="http://www.constitution.org/eng/petright.htm">The Petition of Right</a> (1628), and the <a href="http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp">English Bill of Rights of 1689</a>. Indeed, that last document was written to establish once and forever the rights of Englishmen after a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War">brutal civil war in Britain</a> that saw with the execution of King Charles I in 1649, and then a second, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glorious_Revolution">bloodless revolution</a> that toppled King James II in 1688.<br /><br />
The ideological case for declaring independence was made to the colonists by Thomas Paine in a pamphlet published in January, 1776, <a href="http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html">Common Sense</a>. It was, relative to population, the greatest selling piece of literature but for the Bible in all of our nation's history before or since. Incredibly influential in moving public opinion towards accepting the creation of a new and independent America, it timely set the stage for the Second Continental Congress to consider the issue in June, 1776.<br /><br />
When the Congress took up the issue, the strongest argument for declaring independence was purely pragmatic -- the colonists needed allies and assistance if they were to win, or at least not be conquered, in a war with Britain. France, Britain's greatest enemy, was the most likely candidate for an alliance, but France would never ally with the colonists if the colonists' intention was to return to the British fold. In June, 1776, the <a href="http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/virginia-resolution-proposing-independence.html">Virginia delegation submitted a resolution</a> to the Second Continental Congress, stating that Britain had severed all ties with her colonies and declared war, and that the colonies should declare themselves independent. The resolution met with opposition from five colonies and the motion was tabled, though a committee of five, and ultimately Thomas Jefferson himself, was tasked with drawing up a Declaration of Independence for consideration. The purpose of the document was not merely to declare the colonies independent of Britain, but to justify and explain to the world why this declaration was necessary.<br /><br />
Deciding to approve this Declaration of Independence came with extreme personal risk for the members of the Second Continental Congress. They were among the richest and most successful men in the colonies. They were virtually assured of being executed if the revolution failed -- and the odds of the revolution succeeding were not great. When they wrote, as the last line of the Declaration of Independence, that, "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor," that was not fluff. And Britain's punishment for treason at the time was not mere hanging, but the <a href="http://www.wisegeek.org/what-does-it-mean-to-be-drawn-and-quartered.htm">gruesome torture of being hung, drawn and quartered</a>.<br /><br />
On July 1, 1776, the Continental Congress again voted on whether to declare independence. This time, only two colonies voted against it, South Carolina and Pennsylvania. After a day of debates, a vote was held again on 2 July, 1776, and the colonists agreed unanimously - but for New York whose delegates were still waiting on their orders - that independence should be declared. For the next two days, Congressmen debated Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence and edited it near ninety times. And on the fourth of July, 1776, they voted to approve the edited version and sent it to the printers. It was a positive and pivotal day in world history. It was also the zenith of perhaps the greatest era of civilization, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment">Age of Enlightenment</a>. Thomas Jefferson's preamble in the Declaration of Independence perfectly captured the ideals of the Enlightenment, and it was the only part of the document not edited by the other members of Congress.<br /><br />
Here is the text of the Declaration of Independence. You will note that text includes dashes. These were put in the original by the Continental Congress with the expectation that the Declaration was a document that would be read to large groups of citizens. They were suggestions for where the person reading the document out loud should pause. I have added some additional formatting for ease of reading I have also taken the liberty, in parentheticals, to identify the events to which Thomas Jefferson was likely referring in his list of grievances. Below the text of the Declaration of Independence are two article discussing and analyzing Jefferson's famous preamble:<br /><br />
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</p>
<blockquote><p><b>IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.</b><br /><br />
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,<br /><br />
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.<br /><br />
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, <br /><br />
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.<br /><br />
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present <b>King of Great Britain</b> is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.</p>
<blockquote><p>He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.<br />
[<i>According to <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/lessonplan/doi_indictment.asp">U.S. History.org</a>, Jefferson is referring here to the refusal of the King to allow westward expansion after the <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/proc63.htm">Royal Proclamation of 1763.</a> A <a href="http://www.founding.com/the_declaration_of_i/pageID.2435/default.asp">more likely explanation from Claremont</a> is that this is a generic complaint against the King for retaining power to veto duly passed local laws and, in particular, the King's continuing veto of laws passed by Pennsylvania to restrict the slave trade in that colony. </i>] <br /><br />
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.<br />
[<i><a href="http://www.ushistory.org/DECLARATION/lessonplan/doi_indictment.asp">U.S. History.org</a>: "In 1764, New York wanted to pass a law to include the Indian tribes, particularly the Six Nations, among the colonies. British Governor Colden agreed privately, but the King sent back instructions to all his governors to stop pursuing this notion until further notice. The colonists waited, but the King "utterly neglected to attend to them."</i>]<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.<br />
[<i>This refers to the 1774 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_Act">Quebec Act</a>, that ignored the complaints of British citizens living in Canada and did away with representative government there, establishing in its place a legislative council appointed by the King. </i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.<br />
[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Port_Act">The Boston Port Act</a>, part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts">Intolerable Acts</a> designed to punish Boston and the colony of Masachusetts after the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party">Tea Party</a>, provided in part that the legislature of Massachusetts Bay Colony would, in the future, meet in Salem, not Boston. Similar events happened in Virginia and South Carolina as Royal Governors tried to disrupt intransigent legislatures.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.<br />
[<i>In 1768 and 69, Britain's colonial Secretary ordered all legislatures be dissolved if they adopted the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Circular_Letter">Mass. Circular Letter</a> seeking to unify the colonies and petition the government to rescind the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townshend_Acts">Townshend Acts</a> as unconstitutional. It also refers to the Massachusetts Government Act of 1774, part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts">Intolerable Acts</a>, that functionally ended representative government in Massachusetts. The royal legislatures of the colonies were dissolved individually by the Royal Governors, most in 1775, as they lost control of each colony to the patriots.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.<br />
[<i>Britain's practice of dissolving colonial legislative bodies was meant to stop troublesome legislatures and prevent them from conducting the jobs they were elected to do. Though complaining of this practice, this indictment also states the principle that the source of all local law is the people, not the King, and that such dissolutions has among its effects an abrogation of the sovereign's fundamental duties to defend the colony and maintain the peace. </i>]<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.<br />
[<i>See <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationality_law_in_the_American_Colonies">British Nationality Laws in the American Colonies</a>. This was a minor source of irritation between the colonies and Parliament.</i>]<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.<br />
[<i>According to <a href="http://www.founding.com/the_declaration_of_i/pageID.2437/default.asp">Claremont</a>, this refers to the difficulty the colonies experienced in getting the Board of Trade to approve election districts, judicial bodies and administrative bodies for numerous new communities forming in their "back country." In SC and NC, this occurred because people in the Board of Trade had a financial interest in the Court fees that accrued in existing courts, which fees would have been diluted had the Board approved creation of new courts. It led to the vigilante <a href="http://www.earlyamerica.com/early-america-review/volume-13/the-regulators-movement-in-the-carolinas/">Regulator Movement in NC and SC</a>. </i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. <br />
[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_independence#History">Assuring an independent judiciary</a> was an important theme in British history from the 15th to 18th centuries. It was solved in 1701 by The Act Of Settlement which provided that judges had tenure, subject only to recall by Parliament for cause. But Parliament passed a law in 1761 providing that judges in the colonies, most often appointed from among the local populace, served solely at the King's pleasure and could be removed from office at any time for any reason.</i> ]<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. <br /> [<i>This was a very significant cause of the revolution. Beginning with provisions of the Sugar Act of 1764, Britain severely burdened American commerce in an effort to raise revenue and stop smuggling. Parliament significantly increased the number of customs agents in the colonies and gave these agents, as well as judges in the Admiralty Courts and Royal Governors, a large financial stake in increasing administrative fees and prosecutions for smuggling. The end result was a very abusive and corrupt system that made a mockery of the law and British rights.</i>]<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.<br />
[<i>In the 18th century, people were very distrustful of standing Armies as history, from the time of Julius Caesar to Oliver Cromwell, showed that standing armies were always a threat to civilian governments. Indeed, prohibitions against standing armies and forced quartering of armies both appear in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Yet in 1763, after the French Indian War, Britain opted to maintain an army of 10,000 men in the American colonies, ostensibly to protect against Indians. Colonists objected to the standing army, which they did not see as necessary, and strongly objected to being forced by Parliament to bear part of the cost and maintenance of the army.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: <br />
[<i>This begins a series of charges against Parliament, for passing legislation effecting and taxing colonists directly, and against the King for his role in approving their laws. The colonists were not represented in Parliament and most colonies, by their charters, had been given the sole right to raise taxes and pass laws locally applicable. When Parliament began impinging on those rights and legislating laws on behalf of the colonists without their consent, this became the rallying cry of the colonists.</i>]
</p><blockquote><p><b>For</b> Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:<br />
[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartering_Acts">Quartering Act of 1765 and the Quartering Act of 1774</a>, the latter of which was part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts">Intolerable Acts</a> and which authorized, in certain cases, forced quartering of British soldiers on private property.]</i><br /><br />
<b>For</b> protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: <br />
[<i>This refers to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administration_of_Justice_Act_1774">Administration of Justice Act</a>, also part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts">Intolerable Acts</a>, allowed Royal Governors to direct that trials brought against British soldiers and officers for crimes they committed in the colonies be moved to Britain. This would have placed such a burden on local witnesses to spend months travelling to and from Britain, as well as attending trial, all with no compensation other than travel expenses, that it effectively placed British soldiers and officers outside of the law. In addition, in 1773, a customs official was convicted of a local jury in Boston for the murder of <a href="http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2012/05/28/christopher-seider-the-boston-massacre-and-the-usas-first-martyrs">11 year old Christopher Seider</a> when the official fired his gun directly into the middle of a crowd to disperse them. King George III immediately granted the murderer a full pardon.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>For</b> cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: <br />
[<i>Britain's mercantilist system of trade long restricted the colonies ability to trade with any nation but Britain for important exports and imports. This was not contested by the colonists but for imports of molasses and tea. This indictment to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraining_Acts_1775">Restraining Acts of 1775</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitory_Act">Prohibitory Acts</a> two punitive provisions passed by Britain to break the economic back of those colonies that adopted an embargo against British trade over the Intolerable Acts. The Prohibitory Act went further, declaring the colonies to be in a state of rebellion. It amounted to a declaration of war and authorized a total blockade of the colonies. </i>]<br /><br />
<b>For</b> imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:<br />
[<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stamp_Act_1765">Stamp Act</a> of 1765; <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townshend_Acts">Townshend Acts</a> of 1767, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Act">Tea Act</a> of 1773</i>] <br /><br />
<b>For</b> depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:<br />
[<i>In 1764, with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Act">Sugar Act</a>, Britain began using <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/related/vac.htm">Admiralty Courts</a> to hear criminal and civil cases involving smuggling. These courts were a mockery of British Rights. Cases were heard and decided by a single judge with no jury. A defendant was presumed guilty and had to prove his innocence. Standards for admitting evidence were much lower than in normal courts. There was no right to confront witnesses. And to make it completely corrupt, Admiralty Court judges received commissions based on the value of ships and trade goods they ordered forfeit.</i> ]<br /><br />
<b>For</b> transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences <br />
[<i>This likely refers to two policies. A provision of the Sugar Act allowed a British official to direct that a trial for smuggling be held not in the local Admiralty Court, where the judge would have been a colonist, but in the Vice Admiralty Court that sat in Nova Scotia with a judge appointed directly by the King. The second policy was one proclaimed by Britain but never put into effect. In 1768, the British Secretary for the colonies charged that the attempt, through the Massachusetts Circular Letter, to unify the colonies in peaceful opposition to the Townshend Acts amounted to high treason. Referring to a long outdated law passed under the reign of Henry VIII, Britain claimed the right to bring any colonist to Britain to be tried for a crime amounting to high treason. The colonists strenuously objected to this law in light of their own colonial Charters. The only serious attempt to arrest people for high treason and send them to Britain for trial was General Gage's march on Concord, one goal of which was to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>For</b> abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: <br />
[<i>This refers to the Quebec Act, of which the colonists were deeply distrustful and angry. One, it expanded the boundaries of Canada into territory claimed by several of the American colonies. Two, it ended representative government in Canada. Three, it did away with British civil law in Canada in favor of French civil law Four, it favored French Roman Catholics. The American colonists religiously pluralistic but for Catholicism which had been the bete noir of British protestants since the days of Europe's brutal religious wars. The purpose of the Quebec Act was to satisfy the largely French population of that country and insure that Canada did not join the lower thirteen colonies in opposition to the Crown.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>For</b> taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: <br />
[<i>Britain attempted to do this on more than one occasion in colonial history, but by 1776, this indictment probably only referred to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Government_Act">Massachusetts Government Act</a>, also a part of the Intolerable Acts. By this law, the King unilaterally abrogated the charter governing the colony, in all but name did away with representative democracy, going so far as to outlaw town meetings not pre-approved. This was a clear warning to all of the other colonies that they needed to submit to British demands or Britain would impose a form of martial law upon them. The colonists chose a third option.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>For</b> suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. <br />
[<i>This repeats the indictment about the Massachusetts Government Act, but adds a specific complaint against the <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/related/declaratory.htm">Declaratory Act</a>, which provided that Parliament had unlimited power to legislate for the colonies in all matters. The Declaratory Act was passed in 1766, at the same time Parliament rescinded the Stamp Act, as a means for Parliament to save face</i>.]
</p></blockquote><p>
<b>He</b> has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.<br />
[<i>This refers to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibitory_Act">Prohibitory Act</a> and the clash of arms at Lexington and Concord, then Bunker Hill.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.<br />
[<i>In late 1775, the Royal Navy engaged in several raids against civilian targets in coastal towns, culminating most notoriously in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_Falmouth">burning of the town of Falmouth</a>. These were shocking acts of terrorism and, in particular, convinced at least one still uncommitted colony, South Carolina, that the colony should join in active rebellion against Britain.</i>] <br /><br />
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. <br />
[<i>Britain made extensive use of German mercenaries to augment their forces in the colonies. This was seen as particularly treacherous by the colonists.</i>] <br /><br />
<b>He</b> has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. <br />
[<i>The Prohibitory Act authorized not merely the capture of American ships, but the impressment of any of her crewmen into service aboard British naval ships.</i>]<br /><br />
<b>He</b> has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.<br />
[<i>The Southern colonies had large slave populations. The Royal Governor of Virginia, in late 1775, issued what became known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunmore%27s_Proclamation">Dunmore's Proclamation</a>, offering freedom to any slave owned by a patriot who would take up arms against the patriots. As to the Indians, those who engaged in warfare against the colonists over the past century had a well earned reputation for savagery and attacking civilians of all ages and sexes. For instance, <a href="http://next1000.com/family/EC/LongCane.massacre.html">The Long Canes Massacre</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Duston">ordeal of Hannah Duston</a> are but two examples. The colonists viewed British efforts to enlist the various Indian tribes to war against the colonists as acts of particular evil. And while the Congress did not know it, when they drafted this passage, the Cherokee Indians, acting at the behest of Britain, had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee%E2%80%93American_wars#Revolutionary_War_phase:_Cherokee_War_of_1776">already started their war</a> against the colonists in SC, NC, Georgia and Virginia, in a series of attacks that were supposed to be timed to coincide with the first British offensive of the Revolutionary War outside of Boston, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sullivan%27s_Island">British attack on Charleston, S.C.</a>.</i>]</p></blockquote><p>
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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.<br />
[<i>1774 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petition_to_the_King">Petition to the King</a>; 1776 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Branch_Petition">Olive Branch Petition</a></i>]
<br /><br />
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.<br /><br />
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.<br /><br />
And 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.</p></blockquote><p>
_____________________________________________________<br /><br />
Prof. Randy Barnett has published two articles in the Washington Post (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/04/happy-4th-of-july-the-drafting-of-the-declaration-of-independence/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/04/what-the-declaration-of-independence-really-claimed/">here</a>) taken from a <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Republican-Constitution-Randy-Barnett/dp/0062412280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436018871&sr=1-1&keywords=our+republican+constitution">book he is writing on our Founding documents (available at Amazon)</a>, discusses Jefferson's sources for drafting the Preamble and the Preamble's meaning. I include the relevant portions from those two articles below. In his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/04/happy-4th-of-july-the-drafting-of-the-declaration-of-independence/">first article</a>, Prof. Barnett writes:
</p><blockquote><p>. . . Needing to work fast, Jefferson had to borrow, and he had two sources in front of him from which to crib. The first was his draft preamble for the Virginia constitution that contained a list of grievances, which was strikingly similar to the first group of charges against the King that ended up on the Declaration. The second was a preliminary version of the Virginia Declaration of Rights that had been drafted by George Mason in his room at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg where the provincial convention was being held.<br /><br />
Unlike today, when such cribbing might detract from Jefferson’s accomplishment, achievement in the Eighteenth Century “lay instead in the creative adoption of preexisting models to different circumstances, and the highest praise of all went to imitations whose excellence exceeded that of the examples that inspired them.” For this reason, younger men “were taught to copy and often memorize compelling passages from their readings for future use since you could never tell when, say, a citation from Cicero might come in handy.”<br /><br />
Mason’s May 27th draft proved handy indeed in composing the Declaration’s famous preamble. Its first two articles present two fundamental ideas that lie at the core of a Republican Constitution.<br /><br />
The first idea is that first come rights, and then comes government. Here is how Mason expressed it:
</p><blockquote><p><i>“THAT all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent natural rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”</i></p></blockquote><p>
So, in Mason’s draft, not only do all persons have “certain natural rights” of life liberty and property, but these rights cannot be taken away “by any compact.” As we shall see, Mason’s words became even more canonical than Jefferson’s more succinct version in the Declaration of Independence, as variations were incorporated into several state constitutions.<br /><br />
Article 2 of Mason’s draft then identified the persons who comprise a government as the servants of the sovereign people, rather than their master:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>“That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them.” As trustees and servants, those people who serve as governing magistrates are to respect the inherent natural rights retained by the people.</i></p></blockquote><p>
All this was compressed by Jefferson into fifty-five compelling words:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.</i></p></blockquote><p>
John Adams later recalled that Jefferson took only a day or two to write the first draft, which was then turned over to the committee for its feedback before it was submitted to Congress. Although this draft was then heavily edited and shortened by Congress sitting as a Committee of the Whole, its Preamble was left pretty much as Jefferson had submitted it. I turn now to that Preamble, for these two paragraphs identify the theory of what I am calling our Republican Constitution.</p></blockquote><p>
And in Prof. Barnett's <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/04/what-the-declaration-of-independence-really-claimed/">second article</a>:
</p><blockquote><p>. . . Today, while all Americans have heard of the Declaration of Independence, all too few have read more than its second sentence. Yet the Declaration shows the natural rights foundation of the American Revolution and provides important information about what the founders believed makes a constitution or government legitimate. It also raises the question of how these fundamental rights are reconciled with the idea of “the consent of the governed,” another idea for which the Declaration is famous.<br /><br />
When reading the Declaration, it is worth keeping in mind two very important facts. The Declaration constituted high treason against the Crown. Every person who signed it would be executed as traitors should they be caught by the British. Second, the Declaration was considered to be a legal document by which the revolutionaries justified their actions and explained why they were not truly traitors. It represented, as it were, a literal indictment of the Crown and Parliament, in the very same way that criminals are now publicly indicted for their alleged crimes by grand juries representing “the People.”<br /><br />
But to justify a revolution, it was not thought to be enough that officials of the government of England, the Parliament, or even the King himself had violated the rights of the people. No government is perfect; all governments violate rights. This was well known.<br /><br />
So the Americans had to allege more than mere violations of rights. They had to allege nothing short of a criminal conspiracy to violate their rights systematically. Hence the Declaration’s famous reference to “a long train of abuses and usurpations” and the list that followed. In some cases, these specific complaints account for provisions eventually included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.<br /><br />
But before this list of particular grievances come two paragraphs succinctly describing the political theory on which the new polity was founded. To appreciate all that is packed into these two paragraphs, it is useful to break down the Declaration into some of its key claims.</p>
<blockquote><i><p>“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
This first sentence is often forgotten. It asserts that Americans as a whole, rather than as members of their respective colonies, are a distinct “people.” And this “one people” is not a collective entity, but an aggregate of particular individuals. So “they” not it should “declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”</p></i></blockquote><p>
To “dissolve the political bands” revokes the “social compact” that existed between the Americans and the rest of the people of the British commonwealth, reinstates the “state of nature” between Americans and the government of Great Britain, and makes “the Laws of Nature” the standard by which this dissolution and whatever government is to follow are judged. As Committee of Five delegate Roger Sherman observed in 1774, after hostilities broke out with the British, “We are Now in a State of Nature.” [Note that a "state of nature" is a phrase coined by Thomas Hobbes in his book <i>Leviathan</i> and which he used to mean a state of anarchy, where no government exercised power, where no law held sway, and where individuals were subject to rule by the strongest.]<br /><br />
But what are these “Laws of Nature”? To answer this, we can turn to a sermon delivered by the Reverend Elizur Goodrich at the Congregational Church in Durham Connecticut on the eve of the Philadelphia constitutional convention. At the time of the founding, it was a common practice for ministers to be invited to give an “election sermon” before newly-elected government officials, in this case the delegates to the Constitutional convention, to encourage them to govern according to God’s ways.<br /><br />
In his sermon, Goodrich explained that “the principles of society are the laws, which Almighty God has established in the moral world, and made necessary to be observed by mankind; in order to promote their true happiness, in their transactions and intercourse.” These laws, Goodrich observed, “may be considered as principles, in respect of their fixedness and operation,” and by knowing them, “we discover the rules of conduct, which direct mankind to the highest perfection, and supreme happiness of their nature.” These rules of conduct, he then explained, “are as fixed and unchangeable as the laws which operate in the natural world. Human art in order to produce certain effects, must conform to the principles and laws, which the Almighty Creator has established in the natural world.”<br /><br />
In this sense, natural laws govern every human endeavor, not just politics. They undergird what may be called “normative disciplines,” by which I mean those bodies of knowledge that guide human conduct—bodies of knowledge that tell us how we ought to act if we wish to achieve our goals. To illustrate this, Goodrich offered examples from agriculture, engineering, and architecture:</p>
<blockquote><i><p>He who neglects the cultivation of his field, and the proper time of sowing, may not expect a harvest. He, who would assist mankind in raising weights, and overcoming obstacles, depends on certain rules, derived from the knowledge of mechanical principles applied to the construction of machines, in order to give the most useful effect to the smallest force: And every builder should well understand the best position of firmness and strength, when he is about to erect an edifice.</p></i></blockquote> <p>
To ignore these principles is nothing short of denying reality, like jumping off a roof imagining that one can fly. “For he, who attempts these things, on other principles, than those of nature, attempts to make a new world; and his aim will prove absurd and his labour lost.” By making “a new world,” Goodrich meant denying the nature of the world in which we live. He concludes: “No more can mankind be conducted to happiness; or civil societies united, and enjoy peace and prosperity, without observing the moral principles and connections, which the Almighty Creator has established for the government of the moral world.”<br /><br />
The fact that Goodrich was a relatively obscure public figure—though his son would go on to serve as a Federalist congressman from Connecticut—shows the commonplace understanding of natural law. And Goodrich’s task was to remind the Connecticut delegates of the proper understanding “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”</p>
<blockquote><p><i>“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”</i></p></blockquote><p>
The most famous line of the Declaration, and for some the only line they know. The Committee of Five’s draft referred to these as “inalienable” rights, but for reasons unknown the word was changed to “unalienable” sometime in the process of printing it for the public.<br /><br />
What are inalienable or “unalienable” rights? They are those you cannot give up even if you want to and consent to do so, unlike other rights that you can agree to transfer or waive. Why the claim that these rights are inalienable? The Founders want to counter England’s claim that, by accepting the colonial governance, the colonists had waived or alienated their rights. The Framers claimed that with inalienable rights, you always retain the ability to take back any right that has been given up.<br /><br />
The standard trilogy throughout this period was “life, liberty, and property.” For example, in its Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress (1774), Congress had previously asserted that “the inhabitants of the English colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or compacts,” have the following rights: “That they are entitled to life, liberty and property: and they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.” Or, as the influential British political theorist John Locke wrote, “no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”<br /><br />
Perhaps the most commonly repeated formulation combines the right of property with the pursuit of happiness. This was the version drafted by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights—not the version actually approved by the Virginia convention in Williamsburg on June 11th, 1776, the very day that the Committee of Five was formed in Philadelphia to draft the Declaration for the nation.<br /><br />
The Virginia Convention balked at Mason’s specific wording “on the ground that it was not compatible with a slaveholding society. They changed ‘are born equally free’ to ‘are by nature equally free,’ and ‘inherent natural rights’ to ‘inherent rights.’” The adopted version read:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.</i></p></blockquote><p>
As we will see, the language of Mason’s radical draft—rather than either Virginia’s final wording or Jefferson’s more succinct formulation—became the canonical statement of first principles. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Vermont adopted Mason’s original references to “born equally free” and to “natural rights,” into their declarations of rights. In 1783, this language was used by the Massachusetts supreme court to invalidate slavery in that state. And in 1823, it was invoked in an influential opinion by Justice Bushrod Washington explaining the meaning of “privileges and immunities” of citizens in the several states.<br /><br />
On the one hand, this sentence of the Declaration will become a great embarrassment to a people who allowed the continuation of chattel slavery. On the other hand, making a public claim like this has consequences. That is why people make them publicly — to be held to account. Eventually, the Declaration became a lynchpin of the moral and constitutional arguments of the nineteenth-century abolitionists. It had to be explained away by the Supreme Court in Dred Scott. It was much relied upon by Abraham Lincoln. And ultimately it needed to be repudiated by defenders of slavery in the South because of its inconsistency with that institution.<p>
<blockquote><i><p>“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men. . . .’’</p></i></blockquote><p>
Another overlooked line, but for our purposes, possibly the most important. For it states what will later become the central underlying “republican” assumption of the Constitution: that “first come rights and then comes government.” Here, even more clearly than Mason’s draft, the Declaration identifies the ultimate end or purpose of republican governments as securing the pre-existing natural rights that the previous sentence affirmed is the measure against which all government—whether of Great Britain or the United States—will be judged.</p>
<blockquote><i><p>“. . . deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”</p></i></blockquote><p>
For reasons I will explain in this book, there is a tendency today to focus entirely on the second half of this sentence to the exclusion of the first part that references the securing of our natural rights. Then, by reading “the consent of the governed” as equivalent to “the will of the people,” the second part of the sentence seems to support majoritarian rule by the people’s “representatives.” In this way, the “consent of the governed” is read to mean “consent to majoritarian rule.” Put another way, the people can consent to anything, including rule by a majority in the legislature who will decide the scope of their rights as individuals.<br /><br />
But read carefully, one sees that the Declaration speaks of “just powers,” suggesting that only some powers are “justly” held by government, while others are beyond its proper authority. And notice also that “the consent of the governed” assumes that the people do not themselves rule or govern, but are “governed” by those individual persons who comprise the “governments” that “are instituted among men.”<br /><br />
The Declaration stipulates that those who govern the people are supposed “to secure” their pre-existing rights, not impose the will of a majority of the people on the minority. And, as the Virginia Declaration of Rights made explicit, these inalienable rights cannot be surrendered “by any compact.” So the “consent of the governed” cannot be used to override the inalienable rights of the sovereign people.<br /><br />
So we should recognize that there has arisen a tension between the first part of this sentence and the second. In political discourse, people tend to favor one of these concepts over the other — either preexistent natural rights or popular consent — which leads them to stress one part of this sentence in the Declaration over the other. The fact that rights can be uncertain and disputed leads some to emphasize the consent part of this sentence and the legitimacy of popularly-enacted legislation. But the fact that there is never unanimous consent to any particular law, or even to the government itself, leads others to emphasize the rights part of this sentence and the legitimacy of judges protecting the “fundamental” or “human” rights of individuals and minorities.<br /><br />
If we take both parts of this sentence seriously, however, I believe this apparent tension can be reconciled by distinguishing between (a) the ultimate end or purpose of any legitimate governance and (b) how any particular government gains jurisdiction to rule. So, while the protection of natural rights or justice is the ultimate end of governance, particular governments only gain jurisdiction to achieve this end by the consent of those who are governed.<br /><br />
In Chapter 3, we will see how the concepts of “natural rights” of the people and “the consent of the governed,” were reconciled by the idea of presumed consent. The people as a whole can only be presumed to have consented to what was actually expressed in the written Constitution and, absent a clear statement to the contrary, they cannot be presumed to have consented to surrender any of their natural rights.<br /><br />
Later in our history, the uncertainty of ascertaining natural rights will be addressed by shifting the question from specifying particular rights to critically examining whether any particular restriction of liberty can be shown to be within a “just power” of government—that is, a power to which any rational person would have consented, such as the equal protection of their fundamental rights, including their health and safety.</p>
<blockquote><p><i>“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”</i></p></blockquote><p>
This passage restates the end of government—human safety and happiness—and identifies the “form of government” as a means to this end. Therefore, the people have a right to alter and abolish any form of government when it is destructive of these ends, as the Americans declared the British government to be in the list that followed.<br /><br />
Jefferson adopted it from Article 3 of George Mason’s draft Declaration of rights, which affirmed “that whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, indefeasible right, to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conductive to the publick Weal.”<br /><br />
The political theory announced in the Declaration of Independence can be summed up by the proposition I mentioned above: First come rights, and then comes government. According to this view:<br /><br />
The rights of individuals do not originate with any government, but pre-exist its formation.<br /><br />
The protection of these rights is both the purpose and first duty of government.<br /><br />
Even after government is formed, these rights provide a standard by which its performance is measured and, in extreme cases, its systemic failure to protect rights—or its systematic violation of rights—can justify its alteration or abolition.<br /><br />
At least some of these rights are so fundamental that they are “inalienable,” meaning they are so intimately connected to one’s nature as a human being that they cannot be transferred to another even if one consents to do so.</p></blockquote>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-79777402136305469502015-06-30T15:42:00.001-04:002015-06-30T15:50:49.752-04:00Krauthammer & The Tyranny of The Supreme Court<br />
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Anyone who celebrates this decision, wholly irrespective of where they fall on the issue of gay marriage, is an idiot who has no understanding of the law or the Constitution. If this stands, we are no longer are nation of laws; we are no longer a democracy.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-16606945150645084922015-06-30T15:31:00.001-04:002015-06-30T15:31:38.802-04:00Hillary The Cipher<br />
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-56460848596851660282015-06-30T15:26:00.003-04:002015-06-30T15:26:58.409-04:00Watcher's Council Forum: Is It Time To Replace The GOP? Would You Support A New Party?Each week the <a href="http://www.watcherofweasels.org/">Watcher's Council</a> host a forum, in addition to a contest for best post of the week among the Council members. This week's forum is posted <a href="http://www.watcherofweasels.org/forumis-it-time-to-replace-the-gop-would-you-support-a-new-party/">here</a>. Do click over and read the considered opinions of several very intelligent bloggers on the issue and see with whom you agree.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-49629099831794187332015-06-26T11:53:00.000-04:002015-06-26T13:19:58.874-04:00Our Court's Modern Dred Scott Decision<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKTwWsgyypPyEU0Te99myD2kXVxm1SZP9-VwSUqk7-sEq-qe4T0evyDP1EwRruw4_FHVT3Q7pqNUQ9vkoser6llq2GLI2LRnTEzNkcf4QAw3GIioueGIMM6lr62hjSHNAyGDu5hDXzL6R/s1600/Supreme+Court+Politburo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKKTwWsgyypPyEU0Te99myD2kXVxm1SZP9-VwSUqk7-sEq-qe4T0evyDP1EwRruw4_FHVT3Q7pqNUQ9vkoser6llq2GLI2LRnTEzNkcf4QAw3GIioueGIMM6lr62hjSHNAyGDu5hDXzL6R/s320/Supreme+Court+Politburo.jpg" /></a></div>
<p><br /><br />
Five members of the unelected politburo that is our Supreme Court have created a new Constitutional right out of thin air - the right of homosexual to marry, in today's 5-4 decision in <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf">Obergefell v. Hodges</a>. In so holding, they give their newly preferred policy decision a bare patina of bull shit legalese. But at the same time, they don't even try to hide the fact that this was a pure policy decision.<br /><br />
I won't bother to recount from the majority decision that claims justification under the Equal Protection clause and substantive due process, then pats themselves on the back for effecting social change not supported by the people of this nation. Their arrogance is beyond stomaching. Let's go to the dissents. Ironically, the dissent from CJ Roberts, infamous for his decisions in Obamacare, is directly on point:</p>
<blockquote><p>Over and over, the majority exalts the role of the judiciary in delivering social change. In the majority’s telling, it is the courts, not the people, who are responsible for making “new dimensions of freedom . . . apparent to new generations,” for providing “formal discourse” on social issues, and for ensuring “neutral discussions, without scornful or disparaging commentary.” <br /><br />
Nowhere is the majority’s extravagant conception of judicial supremacy more evident than in its description — and dismissal — of the public debate regarding same-sex marriage. Yes, the majority concedes, on one side are thousands of years of human history in every society known to have populated the planet. But on the other side, there has been “extensive litigation,” “many thoughtful District Court decisions,” “countless studies, papers, books, and other popular and scholarly writings,” and “more than 100” amicus briefs in these cases alone. Ante, at 9, 10, 23. What would be the point of allowing the democratic process to go on? It is high time for the Court to decide the meaning of marriage, based on five lawyers’ “better informed understanding” of “a liberty that remains urgent in our own era.” Ante, at 19. The answer is surely there in one of those amicus briefs or studies.<br /><br />
Those who founded our country would not recognize the majority’s conception of the judicial role. They after all risked their lives and fortunes for the precious right to govern themselves. They would never have imagined yielding that right on a question of social policy to unaccountable and unelected judges. And they certainly would not have been satisfied by a system empowering judges to override policy judgments so long as they do so after “a quite extensive discussion.” . . .<br /><br />
By deciding this question under the Constitution, the Court removes it from the realm of democratic decision. There will be consequences to shutting down the political process on an issue of such profound public significance. Closing debate tends to close minds. People denied a voice are less likely to accept the ruling of a court on an issue that does not seem to be the sort of thing courts usually decide. As a thoughtful commentator observed about another issue, “The political process was moving . . . , not swiftly enough for advocates of quick, complete change, but majoritarian institutions were listening and acting. Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.” Indeed, however heartened the proponents of same-sex marriage might be on this day, it is worth acknowledging what they have lost, and lost forever: the opportunity to win the true acceptance that comes from persuading their fellow citizens of the justice of their cause. And they lose this just when the winds of change were freshening at their backs.<br /><br />
Federal courts are blunt instruments when it comes to creating rights. They have constitutional power only to resolve concrete cases or controversies; they do not have the flexibility of legislatures to address concerns of parties not before the court or to anticipate problems that may arise from the exercise of a new right. Today’s decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their freedom to exercise religion is—unlike the right imagined by the majority — actually spelled out in the Constitution.<br /><br />
Respect for sincere religious conviction has led voters and legislators in every State that has adopted same-sex marriage democratically to include accommodations for religious practice. The majority’s decision imposing samesex marriage cannot, of course, create any such accommodations. The majority graciously suggests that religious believers may continue to “advocate” and “teach” their views of marriage. Ante, at 27. The First Amendment guarantees, however, the freedom to “exercise” religion. Ominously, that is not a word the majority uses. <br /><br />
Hard questions arise when people of faith exercise religion in ways that may be seen to conflict with the new right to same-sex marriage—when, for example, a religious college provides married student housing only to opposite-sex married couples, or a religious adoption agency declines to place children with same-sex married couples. Indeed, the Solicitor General candidly acknowledged that the tax exemptions of some religious institutions would be in question if they opposed same-sex marriage. . . There is little doubt that these and similar questions will soon be before this Court. Unfortunately, people of faith can take no comfort in the treatment they receive from the majority today. . . .<br /><br />
If you are among the many Americans—of whatever sexual orientation—who favor expanding same-sex marriage, by all means celebrate today’s decision. Celebrate the achievement of a desired goal. Celebrate the opportunity for a new expression of commitment to a partner. Celebrate the availability of new benefits. But do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it.</p>
</blockquote><p>
This decision will make the controversy set off by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade">Roe v. Wade</a> seem like the smallest of ant hills. It will be used by the left to punish the religious and further drive religion from all aspects of public life. It may well set this nation on a path to insurrection, much like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford">Dred Scott</a> was a trigger for the Civil War and much like the punitive laws stipping the colonists of their rights set this nation on a path to Revolution. The five members of the Supreme Court who decided this case will no doubt be toasted around D.C. tonight and go to sleep quite happy with themselves. They will, I think, have a lot of blood on their hands before this one ends.<br /><br />
As I wrote below, our Court system needs to root and branch reform. As Chief Justice Roberts correctly notes, our Founders could not possibly imagine the role the activist judiciary has taken upon itself. <br /><br />
<b><i>Update</i></b>: After composing the above, I see that Mike Huckabee has come to the same conclusions. That said, I prefer the way he styles this as judicial tyranny. This from <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/26/mike-huckabee-i-will-not-bow-to-the-court-on-this-gay-marriage-decision-any-more-than-the-founders-bowed-to-british-tyranny/">Hot Air</a>:
</p><blockquote><p>“The Supreme Court has spoken with a very divided voice on something only the Supreme Being can do-redefine marriage. I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.<br /><br />
“This ruling is not about marriage equality, it’s about marriage redefinition. This irrational, unconstitutional rejection of the expressed will of the people in over 30 states will prove to be one of the court’s most disastrous decisions, and they have had many. The only outcome worse than this flawed, failed decision would be for the President and Congress, two co-equal branches of government, to surrender in the face of this out-of-control act of unconstitutional, judicial tyranny.”<br /><br />
“The Supreme Court can no more repeal the laws of nature and nature’s God on marriage than it can the laws of gravity. Under our Constitution, the court cannot write a law, even though some cowardly politicians will wave the white flag and accept it without realizing that they are failing their sworn duty to reject abuses from the court. If accepted by Congress and this President, this decision will be a serious blow to religious liberty, which is the heart of the First Amendment.”</p></blockquote><p>
Bobby Jindal has a <a href="http://www.bobbyjindal.com/governor-jindal-releases-statement-on-gay-marriage-ruling/">similar take</a>.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/2015/06/26/thoughts-about-the-supreme-courts-same-sex-marriage-decision-and-an-open-thread/">Bookworm</a> has some very cogent thoughts on the importance of this decision and how the left will try to use it:</p>
<blockquote><p>This ruling may be the most consequential ruling ever to issue from the Supreme Court. Why? Because the Left will use it to destroy all religions except Islam (which they’re afraid to touch). They’ll use a magical new right to destroy one of the bedrock First Amendment rights.</p></blockquote><p>
Do read her entire <a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/2015/06/26/thoughts-about-the-supreme-courts-same-sex-marriage-decision-and-an-open-thread/">insightful post</a>.<br /><br />
And how did I miss Justice Scalia's dissent:</p>
<blockquote><p>. . . [I]t is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact — and the furthest extension one can even imagine — of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves. . . .<br /><br />
. . . It would be surprising to find a prescription regarding marriage in the Federal Constitution since, as the author of today’s opinion reminded us only two years ago (in an opinion joined by the same Justices who join him today): <br /><br />
</p><blockquote><p>“[R]egulation of domestic relations is an area that has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the States.” <br /><br />
“[T]he Federal Government, through our history, has deferred to state-law policy decisions with respect to domestic relations.”</p></blockquote><p>
But we need not speculate. When the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, every State limited marriage to one man and one woman, and no one doubted the constitutionality of doing so. That resolves these cases. When it comes to determining the meaning of a vague constitutional provision—such as “due process of law” or “equal protection of the laws”—it is unquestionable that the People who ratified that provision did not understand it to prohibit a practice that remained both universal and uncontroversial in the years after ratification. We have no basis for striking down a practice that is not expressly prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s text, and that bears the endorsement of a long tradition of open, widespread, and unchallenged use dating back to the Amendment’s ratification. Since there is no doubt whatever that the People never decided to prohibit the limitation of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the public debate over same-sex marriage must be allowed to continue.<br /><br />
But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law. Buried beneath the mummeries and straining-to-be-memorable passages of the opinion is a candid and startling assertion: No matter what it was the People ratified, the Fourteenth Amendment protects those rights that the Judiciary, in its “reasoned judgment,” thinks the Fourteenth Amendment ought to protect. That is so because “[t]he generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions . . . . ” One would think that sentence would continue: “. . . and therefore they provided for a means by which the People could amend the Constitution,” or perhaps “. . . and therefore they left the creation of additional liberties, such as the freedom to marry someone of the same sex, to the People, through the never-ending process of legislation.” But no. What logically follows, in the majority’s judge-empowering estimation, is: “and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.” The “we,” needless to say, is the nine of us. “History and tradition guide and discipline [our] inquiry but do not set its outer boundaries.” Thus, rather than focusing on the People’s understanding of “liberty” — at the time of ratification or even today — the majority focuses on four “principles and traditions” that, in the majority’s view, prohibit States from defining marriage as an institution consisting of one man and one woman.<br /><br />
This is a naked judicial claim to legislative — indeed, super-legislative — power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy. <br /><br />
. . . [T]o allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.<br /><br />
But what really astounds is the hubris reflected in today’s judicial Putsch. . . . They are certain that the People ratified the Fourteenth Amendment to bestow on them the power to remove questions from the democratic process when that is called for by their “reasoned judgment.” These Justices know that limiting marriage to one man and one woman is contrary to reason; they know that an institution as old as government itself, and accepted by every nation in history until 15 years ago, cannot possibly be supported by anything other than ignorance or bigotry. And they are willing to say that any citizen who does not agree with that, who adheres to what was, until 15 years ago, the unanimous judgment of all generations and all societies, stands against the Constitution.</p></blockquote>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-75999938480062243652015-06-26T10:09:00.000-04:002015-06-26T10:13:01.692-04:00A Nation Of Men, Not Laws<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCJ5KS4O0SaYce9vVltZZXHnWU9C5UVThq1Oa6jqysXYkIjE5vapUxifv2MY_k0y6O8becS7PPN3iX249NQlX1x9hRHhZQWWWcmmtt1tPejX_Md_oNDCcPuDONWmyQSr3lwmBB7RRYMZs5/s1600/judicial+activism.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCJ5KS4O0SaYce9vVltZZXHnWU9C5UVThq1Oa6jqysXYkIjE5vapUxifv2MY_k0y6O8becS7PPN3iX249NQlX1x9hRHhZQWWWcmmtt1tPejX_Md_oNDCcPuDONWmyQSr3lwmBB7RRYMZs5/s400/judicial+activism.gif" /></a></div>
<p><br/><br />
Our Court system (like our regulatory bureaucracy) needs to be torn out root and branch. It is a cancer in our nation that no longer functions to maintain the rule of law. We are now a nation of men. Yesterday's two horrendous decisions by the Supreme Court offer yet more proof, if more is needed. In <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420339/supreme-courts-disparate-impact-decision-disaster-john-fund"><i>Texas Department of Housing v. The Inclusive Communities Project</i></a>, the Court considered whether disparate impact theory can be used, standing alone, to establish racism under the Fair Housing Act. In <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf">King v. Burwell</a>, the Court considered whether certain language in the statute limited federal subsidies to people in states that had established their own health care exchanges. Both cases involved "statutory construction."<br /><br />
Centuries old rules of statutory construction hold that, if a law is clear and unambiguous on its face, then the Court should construe it as written. If the law is ambiguous, than the Court has several methods to apply to construe the statute, including looking to legislative history. What the Court cannot do with any legitimacy is jettison those practices in order to insert their own policy preferences, in essence, unconstitutionally rewriting laws to suit their own ends. Yet that is what the Court did in yesterday in the above two cases that will substantially impact our nation. <br /><br />
In <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420339/supreme-courts-disparate-impact-decision-disaster-john-fund"><i>Texas v. The Inclusive Communities Project</i></a>, the issue was whether disparate impact theory can stand alone as proof of racism in FHA cases. Since the 1960's, when someone dreamed up disparate impact theory, the left has seized upon it to prove institutional racism without the slightest proof of any actual racism. It is a horribly distorting theory that has been used in every possible scenario, from employment to housing to banking and many others. Indeed, it is that theory which, more than anything else, drove our nation into the Great Recession from which we have still not recovered. The theory is this - if a policy or simple selection shows that it is disparately impacting upon one of the left's victim classes, regardless if the policy is completely color blind and based on legitimate and validated concerns, such as, let's say, credit rating standards, then the institution can be held guilty of racism. No single legal theory has done more damage to our nation, <a href="http://www.wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2012/02/from-your-pocket-to-far-left-community.html">nor been more abused by the left</a>. It is not a theory that punishes racism, it is a theory that makes every business race centric and punishes legitimate standards.<br /><br />
In 2010, the Supreme Court held disparate impact theory unlawful in the employment context in <a href="http://www.wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2009/06/ricci-rest-of-story.html"><i>Rici</i></a>. It appeared that the Court was on its way to removing this cancerous theory from litigation. At least until the <i>Texas</i> case yesterday, when the Supreme Court held that <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-1371_m64o.pdf">disparate impact can be used in litigation against the FHA</a>. You can read Justice Thomas's dissent beginning at page 32. The Fair Housing laws are silent on whether disparate impact can be used to establish a claim of racism. The legislative history is <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420339/supreme-courts-disparate-impact-decision-disaster-john-fund">crystal clear</a> that a showing of actual racism, "disparate treatment," is necessary to bring suit under the Fair Housing laws. The activist wing of the Supreme Court, this time without Chief Justice Roberts, ignored that legislative history to uphold use of disparate impact theory. What a travesty.<br /><br />
So the race hustlers can chalk up a huge win compliments of an out of control Court that is no longer a judicial body, but rather a highly politicized third policy arm of our government. The people the race hustlers purported to help, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420339/supreme-courts-disparate-impact-decision-disaster-john-fund"> are not going to see it as a win, though</a>:
</p><blockquote><p>Michael Skojec, a lawyer who filed a brief on behalf of Texas’s position, says what the country should be “trying to do is get people not to consider race, or think of people in racial terms”: “The disparate-impact concept encourages and requires people to think about race in every decision.” He points out that the city of Houston has over 43,000 families on its waiting lists for affordable housing, almost all of them black. But forcing the Texas Housing Authority to change its tax-credit allocations will mean that most of them will have to wait far longer to get a better place to live.</p></blockquote><p>
Then in yesterday's other obscenity, <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf">King v. Burwell</a>, the activist wing of the Court, this time with Chief Justice Roberts, took it upon themselves to rewrite the plain language of Obamacare to allow the law to survive. This from Justice Scalia's well grounded dissent:
</p><blockquote><p>Words no longer have meaning if an Exchange that is not established by a State is “established by the State.” It is hard to come up with a clearer way to limit tax credits to state Exchanges than to use the words “established by the State.” And it is hard to come up with a reason to include the words “by the State” other than the purpose of limiting credits to state Exchanges. “[T]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning of a statute is always to be preferred to any curious, narrow, hidden sense that nothing but the exigency of a hard case and the ingenuity and study of an acute and powerful intellect would discover.” . . . Under all the usual rules of interpretation, in short, the Government should lose this case. But normal rules of interpretation seem always to yield to the overriding principle of the present Court: The Affordable Care Act must be saved.<br /><br />
. . . .<br /><br />
Today’s opinion changes the usual rules of statutory interpretation for the sake of the Affordable Care Act. That, alas, is not a novelty. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U. S. ___, this Court revised major components of the statute in order to save them from unconstitutionality. The Act that Congress passed provides that every individual “shall” maintain insurance or else pay a “penalty.” 26 U. S. C. §5000A. This Court, however, saw that the Commerce Clause does not authorize a federal mandate to buy health insurance. So it rewrote the mandate-cum-penalty as a tax. . . . The Act that Congress passed also requires every State to accept an expansion of its Medicaid program, or else risk losing all Medicaid funding. 42 U. S. C. §1396c. This Court, however, saw that the Spending Clause does not authorize this coercive condition. So it rewrote the law to withhold only the incremental funds associated with the Medicaid expansion. . . . Having transformed two major parts of the law, the Court today has turned its attention to a third. The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an “Exchange established by the State.” This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare.</p></blockquote><p>
This is no longer a nation of laws. And unless the Courts, now the most dangerous branch of government, are uprooted and we start over with reforms in the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/12/newt_gingrich_and_the_supreme_court_the_liberal_scholars_who_support_his_critique_on_judicial_supremacy_.html">nature of those proposed by Newt Gingrich</a>, this nation will be forever dragged further and further away from the Constitutional framework drafted by our Founders into an activist nightmare.</p>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-42836016907425898802015-06-23T19:04:00.000-04:002015-06-26T10:14:51.601-04:00Wolf Bytes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420164/forgiving-dylann-roof-wrong-dennis-prager">Dennis Prager has a piece</a> disagreeing with those family members of the people killed by the nutjob Dylann Roof in SC for forgiving said nutjob. I don't think that Mr. Prager quite gets the Christian doctrines. Their forgiveness is simply refusing to hold hate in their heart and to hope that the nutjob repents. That really is a refusal to allow themselves to have this nutjob power over them to effect their lives. It is not a call for releasing the nutjob or to not to have him pay for the consequences of his evil actions, which is where I think Prager misses the distinctions.<br /><br />
Prager also misses another distinction in the second half of his article, though I agree with most of his points in that second half. I doubt that you will find better race relations throughout the U.S. than in the southeast. There is a reason that so many blacks are migrating back to the southeast. There is a reason that the blacks in Charleston have not reacted in riots and outrage, either to this mass murder or to the police shooting of Walter Scott. Indeed, the horrible facts of the Roof's case show that he went to the Emanuel AME Church and was welcomed by the members into their Bible Study for an hour. Roof has since said that the people there were so nice to him, he almost turned away. Prager seems to be conflating the members of Emanuel Church with the race hustlers, and there he is wrong. The people of Emanuel Church, like most blacks, are not race hustlers nor reverse racists. <br /><br />
Have you read <a href="http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2015/06/22/the-white-houses-court-jews-wage-a-new-campaign-against-michael-oren/">Michael Oren's new book, Ally</a>? Robert Avrech gives it a good - <a href="http://www.seraphicpress.com/ally-by-michael-b-oren-ambassador-to-chelm/#more-26051">and disturbing - review</a>. Obama and his entire administration are anti-semitic.<br /><br />
First there was Rachel Dolezal:</p><br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx5B7DjxBaJ_rxceRWYRUCYnXggbp4dJTC1arFdp-9aRn2lAnW5dSaC_p8Rep8pJar6uVa61oBT9lCtrunnFDkQbmLmFIcruE7fw5WHrxpqYklKA0_1EpZI8Ge6iAp4XaJNT_ULDxYF7eK/s1600/Rachel+Dolezal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx5B7DjxBaJ_rxceRWYRUCYnXggbp4dJTC1arFdp-9aRn2lAnW5dSaC_p8Rep8pJar6uVa61oBT9lCtrunnFDkQbmLmFIcruE7fw5WHrxpqYklKA0_1EpZI8Ge6iAp4XaJNT_ULDxYF7eK/s400/Rachel+Dolezal.jpg" /></a></div><p>
<br /><br />And now we have a white Huffpo writer so caught up in white guilt that<a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/06/23/white-huffpo-writer-i-was-so-ashamed-of-my-whiteness-that-i-didnt-want-children/"> she won't reproduce</a> because she does not want to spread white privilege. She is a true product of the teaching of grievance history and, as such, I applaud her decision. I personally think that all on the left should emulate her.<br /><br />
The only good thing about living in 2015 is that the insanity of the neo-Stalinist left and the fruits of their labor are now out in the open everywhere. It is no longer metastasizing in the dark, where its motives can be denied and obfuscated.<br /><br />
I finally found an English translation of <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html">Laudato Si here</a>. The last time the Church weighed in on cutting edge science as a religious matter was with Galileo. It very rightfully didn't go well for the Church. I guess it is time for the Church to relearn that lesson. I wish they would require Popes to take a course in basic economics while they're at it.<br /><br />
I am all for free trade and agree with <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420149/why-not-unilateral-free-trade">all of Kevin Williamson's points</a> in his article at NRO. That said, I do not trust Obama or Republicans at this point, and I am incredibly wary about any trade deal that puts powers rightfully in the purview of our Congress in the hands of any sort of international tribunal, which apparently this proposed trade deal does in regards to certain visas. <br /><br />
Victor Davis Hanson weighs in on that iconic Democrat symbol, the Confederate Battle Flag. I agree with him. As a government sanctioned flag, get rid of it. Indeed, I agree with him that we should get rid of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420142/america-one-nation-indivisible">all left wing symbols of racism and separatism</a>, such as the Black Caucus, La Raza, etc.<br /><br />
Thomas Sowell weighs in on why <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420152/hillary-clinton-secretary-state-foreign-policy-disaster">Hillary's record as Sec. of State should disqualify</a> her from running for the President. It is a good restatement of the obvious. <br /><br />
Let's finish with a couple of public service announcements. One, ladies, tight <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/06/23/warning-skinny-jeans-will-kill-you/">jeans</a> are solely for showing off, not for practical work. Two, I would not go to Vermont if I were you . . . at least if I <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/vermont-stop-selling-twinkies/">expected to eat</a>. First they gave us Bernie, now they outlaw GMO's. And then the hungry, penniless bastards will move south in search of food and gold where they will find it -- and then proceed to try to change the culture to match Vermont's. The lesson of Colorado is that we really do need to have border control, not just with Mexico, but also between functioning red states and escapees from the blue states.<br /><br />
But a good short reminder of the <a href="http://www.wondersandmarvels.com/2015/06/blown-away-the-mongol-invasions-of-japan.html">origin of the word Kamikaze</a> and the failed Mongol invasions of Japan.
<br /><br /></p>
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<br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-10541685389920680072015-06-05T01:25:00.000-04:002015-06-05T01:27:28.761-04:00Hillary, Rev. Brooks & The Black Vote<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd2xKwABAJoyjjq1hND6hgHlctO8uc-FSHSNBa2oLiqdfhhTIOw6hkTPpVS2air-HtUcjVyrCwLDo5Q1SMGN9Eo01m6RKQ1QuWzZhFimkV6ywlKA_qpoKQjDCdwXoah_fuuuzLmJ-EGDTt/s1600/Rev+Corey+Brooks.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd2xKwABAJoyjjq1hND6hgHlctO8uc-FSHSNBa2oLiqdfhhTIOw6hkTPpVS2air-HtUcjVyrCwLDo5Q1SMGN9Eo01m6RKQ1QuWzZhFimkV6ywlKA_qpoKQjDCdwXoah_fuuuzLmJ-EGDTt/s400/Rev+Corey+Brooks.png" /></a></div><p><br /><br />
On Thursday, Hillary Clinton, speaking to a largely black audience in a three-quarters empty arena at Texas Southern University, made her pitch for why blacks, having voted between 85% to 90% on average for Democrats in every election for over fifty years, should continue to do so and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3111535/Hillary-Clinton-plays-raucous-HALF-arena-black-university-claims-opponents-want-disempower-disenfranchise-people-color.html">pull the lever for her in 2016</a>. She didn't address the problems with black poverty. She didn't address the problems of a shrinking black middle class. She didn't address black unemployment. She didn't address the high incidence of violent crime in the black community. She didn't address the horrendous educational opportunities for inner city blacks. She didn't even mention the breakdown in black families and the huge problem of unwed mothers in the black community. And to cap it all, she didn't let anyone ask questions who might raise these topics.<br /><br />
So just what reason could she possibly give to keep blacks voting Democrat? According to Hillary, racist Republicans want to keep blacks from voting. That and she wants to deal with the problems of black incarceration by passing a federal law to allow felons to vote. Only she and the Democrat party stand between blacks and a return to the Jim Crow policies of . . . Democrats, if you want to be accurate. And only that will solve all of the horrendous systemic problems in a large section of the black community that have gotten worse, not better, under fifty years of Democrat stewardship.<br /><br />
Is there anyone with an I.Q. over 50 and who is not part of the racial grievance industry who is actually buying this crap?<br /><br />
One person who is not is Pastor Corey Brooks who runs the New Beginnings Church on the South side of Chicago, a largely black enclave. And indeed, he has made an offer to Republican Presidential candidates to come speak at his Church -- an offer every one of them should be falling all over themselves to accept. This from the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/04/the-gop-s-black-church.html">Daily Beast</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>. . . “African Americans have been loyal to the Democratic Party,” Pastor Corey Brooks said. “But there is a group of African Americans that feel like the Democratic Party has not been loyal to us.”<br /><br />
Not far from O Block—named for a fallen gang member killed by a female assassin—is New Beginnings Church of Chicago, where Brooks sat in his office Wednesday morning laying out the case for Republican presidential candidates to visit the area.<br /><br />
So far, only Rand Paul already has taken him up on his offer—extended to all candidates of each party. The two walked through Parkway Gardens, an apartment complex along O Block, after Paul’s speech to his congregation.<br /><br />
Brooks isn’t the only person to believe a great change must occur for inner cities across the country to be able to break free from the poverty and crime that envelope them. But the pastor is looking to a different source than others for that change, one that doesn’t usually count O Block among its campaign stops: Republicans.<br /><br />
Look around the neighborhood that contains O Block — Woodlawn — and you’ll see why, Brooks said.<br /><br />
“We have a large, disproportionate number of people who are impoverished. We have a disproportionate number of people who are incarcerated, we have a disproportionate number of people who are unemployed, the educational system has totally failed, and all of this primarily has been under Democratic regimes in our neighborhoods,” Brooks said from the office of New Beginnings Church of Chicago, his own, Wednesday morning. “So, the question for me becomes, how can our neighborhoods be doing so awful and so bad when we’re so loyal to this party who is in power? It’s a matter of them taking complete advantage of our vote.”<br /><br />
So Brooks has mobilized.<br /><br />
Not only did he take it upon himself to bring Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner to New Beginnings as he ran to become the first Republican to lead the state in more than two decades, but Brooks also supported Rauner, something that didn’t exactly come roaring out of Chicago’s South Side.<br /><br />
And while Brooks has yet to announce publicly who he supports for president, his political leanings are well known in his church and around Woodlawn.<br /><br />
“They have a failing plan,” he said of Democrats. “A business owner wouldn’t allow the person who runs it to remain in charge for 50 years, constantly running it into the ground.”<br /><br />
But the reason he invited all active presidential candidates to New Beginnings isn’t to secure votes for the GOP, he said, but to give members of the community the opportunity to be as informed an electorate as possible.<br /><br />
And why not? Since the civil rights movement blacks have overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, both on the national and local levels, Brooks noted.<br /><br />
But the results simply aren’t there.<br /><br />
“They have a failing plan,” he said of Democrats. “A business owner wouldn’t allow the person who runs it to remain in charge for 50 years, constantly running it into the ground.”<br /><br />
A political science major at Ball State University, Brooks moved to Chicago 20 years ago from his hometown of Muncie, Indiana. In addition to his church, a bustling hub of activity that includes a spacious worship room complete with projection screens and theater seating, Brooks is preparing to break ground on a community center just across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive — without any government assistance, naturally.<br /><br />
When he first moved to the city he kept his political opinions to himself, not wanting to rock the boat, but after seeing a lack of progress he “couldn’t stomach it.” There is tension, he said, because growing up black on the South Side of Chicago means, for many, “You are a Democrat. Period.”<br /><br />
That has led to the Democratic Party taking the black vote for granted, Brooks said.<br /><br />
“And we don’t want anyone from any party taking us for granted.”<br /><br />
Across the board, it seems, Brooks is a Republican.<br /><br />
He spoke in strong terms about unions—“I can’t tell you how many guys come to me and tell they’re locked out of the trade unions for this reason or that,” Brooks said. “And in Chicago, the unions control everything.”<br /><br />
The pastor is in favor of legally possessing guns, even on the bullet-riddled South Side. And he blames the breakdown of the black family, partly due to social programs that “penalize” those who wish to marry and prevent them from continuing to receive government assistance, for the culture of violence that is so pervasive in urban areas from Woodlawn to West Baltimore.<br /><br />
“And that doesn’t even begin to get into the music and entertainment aspects of it,” Brooks said.<br /><br />
Brooks is not an anomaly, either. But overcoming the power and pressure of the Democratic Party’s relationship with the black community, despite its stance on social issues that often lean conservative, isn’t easy.<br /><br />
“In quiet areas,” Brooks said, “this is something we talk about.”<br /><br />
Some have replied to Brooks’s request to stop by his church for what he’s calling the American Urban Issues Presidential Series. While Paul is the only Republican to make the trip, so far, Brooks said he heard back from the campaigns of Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
Amen. Any Republican candidate who does not take advantage of this offer should not get the nomination for President, pure and simple. The cyclical and systemic problems of the black community are an obscenity in this day and age that needs to be a concern to every American. The Democrat policies, many well meaning when first adopted, have proven devastating to the black community and, as a consequence, this nation as a whole.<br /><br /> </p>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-32730005106322987402015-06-03T15:38:00.000-04:002015-06-03T15:41:57.022-04:00Global Warming, The Temperature Record & The 97% Consensus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsawSCUvEuVldbJ6pB4tG6zTHnAfmR3GWDiVct6E_AWeyaWgS7EzrSRe7St1u_owGgLjy2bJJgjl9TYcwbfXKU-eB1gi4T-DYytxL-d0Y-U0Y0UzwXiciTs1nokGIJpIK1TqMOqvzZRAyZ/s1600/globalwarmingdebate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsawSCUvEuVldbJ6pB4tG6zTHnAfmR3GWDiVct6E_AWeyaWgS7EzrSRe7St1u_owGgLjy2bJJgjl9TYcwbfXKU-eB1gi4T-DYytxL-d0Y-U0Y0UzwXiciTs1nokGIJpIK1TqMOqvzZRAyZ/s400/globalwarmingdebate.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /><br />
There's an old joke about a golfer whose best club in his bag was a pencil. So it would seem with those who are responsible for maintaining the temperature records. We've known for twenty years that they've been adjusting the historical climate data to make the records fit their theories. The latest on this is from Christopher Booker in his recent column, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html">The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.<br /><br />
Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.<br /><br />
This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-temperature record. . . .<br /><br />
Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.<br /><br />
Homewood has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic, between Canada (51 degrees W) and the heart of Siberia (87 degrees E). Again, in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded. This has surprised no one more than Traust Jonsson, who was long in charge of climate research for the Iceland met office (and with whom Homewood has been in touch). Jonsson was amazed to see how the new version completely “disappears” Iceland’s “sea ice years” around 1970, when a period of extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy. . . .<br /><br />
Of much more serious significance, however, is the way this wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record – for reasons GHCN and Giss have never plausibly explained – has become the real elephant in the room of the greatest and most costly scare the world has known. This really does begin to look like one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time.</p></blockquote><p>
Then there is the claim that, among climate scientists, a 97% consensus exists that "climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." That number comes from a study, if it can be called that, by John Cook, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. This from Prof. Richard Tol commenting on that paper:</p>
<blockquote><p>The 97 percent claim was taken from a study paper by Australian John Cook, Climate Communications Fellow for the Global change Institute at the University of Queensland, and his colleagues, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in May, 2013. The paper says nothing about the would-be dangers of climate change and it counts the number of publications, rather than the number of scientists, in support of human-made climate change. Never let facts get in the way of a good story.<br /><br />
The paper is a treasure trove of how-not-to lessons for a graduate class on survey design and analysis: the sample was not representative, statistical tests were ignored, and the results were misinterpreted.<br /><br />
What was an incompetent piece of research has become a highly influential study, its many errors covered up.<br /><br />
Some of the mistakes in the study should be obvious to all. There are hundreds of papers on the causes of climate change, and thousands of papers on the impacts of climate change and climate policy. Cook focused on the latter. A paper on the impact of a carbon tax on emissions was taken as evidence that the world is warming. A paper on the impact of climate change on the Red Panda was taken as evidence that humans caused this warming. And even a paper on the television coverage of climate change was seen by Cook as proof that carbon dioxide is to blame.<br /><br />
Cook and Co. analysed somewhere between 11,944 and 12,876 papers – they can’t get their story straight on the sample size – <i><b>but only 64 of these explicitly state that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming. A reexamination of their data brought that number down to 41</b></i> [emphasis added]. That is half a per cent or less of the total, rather than 97 percent.<br /><br />
The remainder of Cook’s “evidence” is papers that said that humans caused some climate change and, more importantly, papers that Cook’s colleagues thought said as much.<br /><br />
There is vigorous debate about how much humans have contributed to climate change, but no one argues the effect is zero. By emitting greenhouse gases, changing the landscape, rerouting rivers, and huddling together in cities, we change the climate – perhaps by a little, perhaps by a lot – but not one expert doubts we do. However, a true consensus – 100 per cent agreement – does not serve to demonize those experts who raise credible concerns with the state of climate research.<br /><br />
The trouble does not end there. Cook has been reluctant to share his data for others to scrutinize. He has claimed that some data are protected by confidentiality agreements, even when they are not. He was claimed that some data were not collected, even when they were. The paper claims that each abstract was read by two independent readers, but they freely compared notes. Cook and Co. collected data, inspected the results, collected more data, inspected the results again, changed their data classification, collected yet more data, inspected the results once more, and changed their data classification again, before they found their magic 97 percent. People who express concern about the method have been smeared. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
This all stinks of a canard. Even as questions arise, the left is engaged in an all out push to ensconce human caused climate change as dogma and as a primary driver of our laws and social policy. The <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/schoolroom-climate-change-indoctrination-1432767611">push is on through Common Core</a> to teach anthropogenic global warming as settled science in grades K-12. With all of the dangers we face in the foreign arena, from a newly energized China and Russia to nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East and the continuing existential danger from radical Islam, President Obama spoke at the Coast Guard academy claiming that our <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/obama-tells-coast-guard-grads-climate-change-threatens-013014197--finance.html">greatest national security threat is climate change</a>. With all of the horrendous issues facing the black community today in Obama's America, with growing violence, single motherhood, horrid schools and declining economic opportunities, Michelle Obama spoke at Oberlin College and claimed that <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/26/michelle-obama-global-warming-is-the-new-civil-rights-movement/">climate change was the new civil rights movement</a>.<br /><br />
Actually, it is hard to think of anything more perfectly designed to screw the middle and lower middle class than the many "green" policies and costs that would arise out of a full embrace of the climate change canard. That carbon tax on fossil fuels would go to feed the left, but it would act as regressive tax on all Americans. Just as it is hard to think of anything less pressing to our national security than anthropogenic climate change.<br /><br /></p>
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<br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-34996863189673200632015-06-03T14:27:00.001-04:002015-06-03T14:27:36.715-04:00Watcher's Council Forum: What Effect Will The Busload Of GOP Candidates Have On 2016?<br />
Late blogging on <a href="http://www.watcherofweasels.org/forum-what-effect-will-the-busload-of-gop-candidates-have-on-2016/">last week's forum</a> at the Watcher's Council. There were a wide variety of answers to the question this week, with more seeing the glass half empty than half full:
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<b><a href="http://askmarion.wordpress.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">Ask Marion</a></b> : I’d say the biggest immediate issue with nearly 20 Republican presidential primary candidates is logistics. Where do you put them all for the first couple of debates, before the numbers thin? How do you fit them all on one stage in the first debate set for August? Do you leave some out, including current and former governors and senators? Or do you hold two different debates in one night — with nine or ten candidates in one hour, and another nine or ten the next? And would either of those approaches be fair? Those were all questions after an earlier suggestion that Republicans might cap the first debate to nine… to twelve participants, which would mean that some prominent names might be excluded. The<a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/2016-elections/rnc-tries-damage-control-over-debate-cap-20150518" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">National Journal</a> reports that the Republican National Committee (RNC) is now walking back the talk about a cap.</div>
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On the flip side, the Republican bench is deep and wide giving America some real choices while the Democrat Party has Hillary… yesterday’s politician, equally old and problematic Elizabeth Warren, old self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders and a couple stragglers.</div>
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I say the greater issues for the GOP are:</div>
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<a href="https://askmarion.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/gop-has-great-hopefuls-needs-strategy/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">The Republicans’ lack cohesiveness and a strateg</a>y, plus they have let the Dems get far ahead of them in the use of technology, however often underhanded, in getting out the vote!</div>
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Plus the Republican Establishment, who runs the RNC, favors the moderates and <a href="https://askmarion.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/new-polls-palin-slams-bush-and-clinton/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">ignores some of the candidates that would be the true answers to America’s problems and just might be the dark horse winners.</a>They along with the progressive media have even convinced some staunch conservatives not to follow their heart out of fear.</div>
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In today’s climate, the 2016 elections, especially after the GOP’s landslide in 2014, should be theirs, if those obstacles can be surmounted and if the base gets out to vote.</div>
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<b> <a href="http://www.varight.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">Virginia Right!</a></b> : We have a massive field of candidates already ranging from very good to very bad (in my not so humble opinion).</div>
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Having such a large number of candidates can be cumbersome, but it is good to get the ideas out all across the party spectrum. As Jeb Bush struggles in every category but money, it lets the Republicans who watch these things closely know that money may not be the deciding factor.</div>
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After 8 years of national devastation by Democrats, the last thing voters are clamoring for is another dynasty. Especially a Bush dynasty.</div>
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One of the most dramatic effects of the large field is the effect on the polls. The liberal press is positively awash in glory as Hillary tops pretty much every Republican in their “head to head” polling. But remember, these are the same pollsters that called the UK elections too close to call and completely missed the blowout for the Conservative party and let’s not forget the abysmal results of the last US election where the polls showed Democrats doing much better than they actually did.</div>
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Now toss in the huge Republican field and there is absolutely no way any “head to head” polling will produce any meaningful results. Few people are really paying attention at this point, and the responses cannot be trusted. Many Republicans will pick Hillary in a poll over a Republican candidate that is not to their liking. I’d probably pick Hillary in a poll over Lindsey Graham or Chris Christie. But I wouldn’t vote for her on election day.</div>
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And we now have O’Malley entering the race along with elderly Socialist kook Bernie Sanders. So far, the Democrats have only had Hillery to pick from. If nothing else, O’Malley will provide some of the Democrat on Democrat mud slinging that has been the mainstay of the GOP so far.</div>
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It is much too early to get too worked up on the large field. We are still 18 months away. The cannibalism has just begun. And the dialog will be interesting and enlightening as time goes by.</div>
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<b> <a href="http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">JoshuaPundit</a></b> : Ah hah hah hah!!! The Stupid Party strikes again. This is absolutely the Left’s dream come true.</div>
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20 or so candidates, all kissing up to the legacy media for space, all fighting tooth and nail like a pack of wild dogs for the same donor money, all saying things it will be impossible for the average low information voter to keep track of,, and ultimately boring quite a few of them. The Democrats will appear focused and centered by comparison, especially with the media helping them,</div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.3999996185303px; line-height: 1.6em;">And of course, all providing oppo research,nasty quotes and video loops free of charge to the Democrats on whomever survives the massacre. Since most of them label themselves as conservatives, one beneficiary will likely Jeb Bush. This is exactly how we would up with John McCain and Mitt Romney.</span></div>
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There are really only two possible bright spots I see. Hopefully we’ll be down to 3 or so serious candidates by the end of 2015. And two, if this many clowns are vying to be ringmaster of the circus, the real polls they’ve commissioned as opposed to the propaganda fed to the peasants by the media must be a lot more favorable to a Republican in the White House than we’re being lead to believe.<b></b></div>
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<b><a href="http://www.theglitteringeye.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">The Glittering Eye</a></b> : The large Republican field tells us several things. Keep in mind that every U. S. senator at least at some point imagines him or herself a president-in-waiting. One of the things that the large field tells us is that there are a lot of youngish but very senior Republican senator and governors or ex-governors. That’s sometimes referred to as a “deep bench” but I think that’s overly kind.</div>
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The other thing that it tells us is that today’s Republican Party, although much more ideological than it used to be, still brings together some pretty disparate elements. Social conservatives, libertarians, and the “Republican establishment” (to the extent that there is a Republican establishment any more). That would yield a minimum of three candidates if each candidate represented only one of those elements. But they don’t. They represent combinations of those elements plus a few others so it shouldn’t be surprising that there are a lot of candidates.</div>
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As an outsider the advice I’d offer is to heed Reagan’s old Eleventh Commandment: thou shalt not speak ill of they fellow Republican. They should keep their sights trained on the president, Hillary Clinton, and the Democrats. Speaking ill of Republicans is the press’s job.</div>
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<b>Laura Rambeau Lee, <a href="http://right-reason.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">Right Reason</a>:</b> : What is a Republican? Looking at the cast of candidates and potential candidates running for president on the GOP ticket, very few can be considered true Republicans. Traditionally, a Republican is someone who supports free market capitalism, limited federal government, conservative social values, a strong military, and above all respects the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law.</div>
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Who among the current candidates can be counted as a true Republican? I believe this is what is hurting the party, and not necessarily the number of candidates. The big government progressives who call themselves Republicans are hurting the base and the party platform. Libertarian Rand Paul has the Young Republicans’ support for all the wrong reasons. It is becoming more and more difficult for the average voter to know where a candidate stands and that they can be trusted to keep their campaign promises once elected.</div>
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Sadly, I expect the number of candidates will hurt the party leading up to the presidential election in 2016, dividing Republican voters based on the issues most important to them. I also believe this will help propel Jeb Bush to the top of the list as the candidates drop out and throw their support, and money, behind him.</div>
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<b><a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">Wolf Howling</a></b> : What a deep bench the Republicans are fielding this year, with sixteen people declared or expected to declare soon. It is an embarrassment of riches, and the amazing thing is that most of them are serious candidates who could in fact gain the nomination. There are just a few – Donald Trump, Chris Christie and Lindsey Graham – who, in my view, likely stand no chance. This deep field stands in direct contrast to the Democrat field of one tired old scandal ridden lady.</div>
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The problem for Republicans will be to quickly winnow the field. Inevitably, some who are worthy of consideration are going to get shafted because of limitations on who will be able to appear at the initial debates. But still, by the time the later rounds of the primaries arrive, we should have several strong candidates who have distinguished themselves from the pack. I think this is good for the party. It adds a real element of drama to the race, and that should capture national attention and most of the headlines as the primary season unfolds.</div>
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<b><a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;">Bookworm Room</a>:</b> Considering how often the mainstream media cuts conservative voices out of the debate, there’s something to be said for having a wide variety of conservatives advocating their particular brand of conservativism, from Rand Paul’s loopy libertarianism (I prefer the Charles Murray variety myself) to Mike Huckabee’s old-fashioned southern Democrat demagoguery dressed up as conservativism, each of them adds something.</div>
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My fear, of course, is that Americans, rather than listening to the candidates, will tune out the tumult of voices — especially after the mainstream media gets done pillorying them as racists, homophobes, misogynists, warmongers, wacko birds, and whatever other labels it can stick on people who believe in the Constitution and believe in a constitutional America. My hope is that the most articulate voices among the crowd, such as Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Carly Fiorina, even if they don’t prevail in the primaries, are able to turn voters on to the virtues of a true constitutional republic.</div>
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My other fear is that the big money in politics (including Left-wing groups intent upon making mischief), will keep Jeb’s candidacy afloat long enough for disaffected, confused, or disgusted voters to go for a familiar name.</div>
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Bottom line: Win or lose, these candidates have the potential to be good. They also create an irresistible target for the MSM, which will treat the Republican primary like a turkey shoot — and unfortunately, the establishment Republicans, like the pledges in Animal House, will bend over and show the target on their craven backsides:</div>
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<a href="http://greatsatansgirlfriend.blogspot.com/" style="background: url(http://www.watcherofweasels.org/wp-content/themes/nigarila/img/highlight_ltblue3.png) 0% 100% repeat-x; color: #006699; padding: 0px 2px; text-decoration: none;"><br /><b>GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD</b></a> :Most likely solidify the message.</div>
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Also put an especial emphasis on Nat’l Security and Foreign Policy. Iowa will tell the tale – a culling if ye will – getting the top tier cats on the top tier. For now – the more the merrier!</div>
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<br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-4477331916438250812015-05-28T09:31:00.002-04:002015-05-28T09:31:42.287-04:00The Immutable Economic Law Of Bark & DemandKeep raising the minimum wage and business owners will either go out of business, automate, or seek alternatives to employees priced beyond the actual value of their employment. If you don't understand the concepts, Kevin Williamson provides a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418926/bernie-sanderss-dark-age-economics-kevin-d-williamson">good primer here</a>, written with Bernie Sanders and his supporters in mind. Regardless, you can see the impact below:
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-79525767609339942752015-05-28T09:22:00.001-04:002015-05-28T09:22:35.313-04:00Egyptian TV: Is Obama Trying To Destroy America?Actually, between the Iran deal, his decisions regarding our military, and his latest claim that climate change is our greatest national security threat, asking where Obama is trying to destroy America is not at all an unreasonable question. Unfortunately, you won't find this panel appearing in our MSM.<br /><br />
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<br /><br />The clip is a translation provided by <a href="http://www.memri.org/">MEMRI.org</a>.<br /><br />
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-51715385845838368192015-05-26T22:58:00.001-04:002015-05-26T22:58:45.311-04:00The Left's New Definitions Of Racism & Rape - It's All About Feelings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYt1qaMXzQDipeQcl90l6oyJippZbQq_RdhYnbiSrpsdmDzgsfHgxhBoTk7xPqW52ljd5G692AI1vPj8aYSo7A3mehYiXwbYKrqA9eEoCOvdiNHK0BucbKXCE6kne4jheJ0-tqe8hhjlc/s1600/Pretty+Little+Liars+Sulkowicz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYt1qaMXzQDipeQcl90l6oyJippZbQq_RdhYnbiSrpsdmDzgsfHgxhBoTk7xPqW52ljd5G692AI1vPj8aYSo7A3mehYiXwbYKrqA9eEoCOvdiNHK0BucbKXCE6kne4jheJ0-tqe8hhjlc/s400/Pretty+Little+Liars+Sulkowicz.jpg" /></a></div><p><br/><br />
In this country, we live in an era virtually free of mainstream racism, just as we live in an era of relative gender equality (speaking of only two genders now) and of vastly declining violence against women. Yet if one were to believe the left, America today is rife with racism manifesting itself in countless microaggressions. Likewise, according to the left, there is a war on women being waged in America, one aspect of which is "rape culture," particularly on college campuses, where women are being subject to sexual assault by evil white men on a scale to rival the incidence of rape in the war torn Congo. Both claims, incredibly destructive to society as well as to individuals who get caught up in their web, are wholly disconnected from reality. So why is the left doing this, and how is the left justifying these canards? <br /><br />
In regards to both microaggressions and claims of rape culture, the left is taking this incredibly damaging tack because they want to balkanize America, and as part and parcel thereof, to keep minorities and women feeling as if they are under siege. With respect to race, this has been the playbook for over the past half century. When it comes to the modern radical feminists, however, there is a far more ambitious goal - to punish men as a whole and do away with societal norms of sex and family.<br /><br />
How they are trying to accomplish this is likewise obvious - do away with any objective standards for defining racism or rape. No longer is an actual act of racism necessary to sustain claims of racism. No longer is an act of rape or sexual assault necessary to sustain claims of rape or sexual assault. It is all now about the subjective feelings of the "victim." <br /><br />
This from Jim Goad in his article, <a href="http://takimag.com/article/land_of_1000_microaggressions_jim_goad/print#axzz3anHkpzXT">Land of 1000 Microaggressions</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>If a person of color feels offended by something a well-meaning white person said and no one knows they’re offended, is it still a hate crime?<br /><br />
This is the implicit question posed by the very idea of “racial microaggressions.” The concept seems to have been formulated by the racial-grievance industry to fill the savage dearth of truly aggressive acts committed by whites toward nonwhites over the past few generations.<br /><br />
In other words, if what used to be known as “racism” no longer exists, you have to greatly expand the term’s breadth so that it includes words, thoughts, and acts that have zero conscious hostility behind them. You have to make everything racist just to stay in business. . . .<br /><br />
Even if you have no hatred in your heart for a person of color and even if you make the most obsequious gestures of appeasement toward them, you are still hurting them and acting racist toward them because, well, you’re white, and that’s what you people do.<br /><br />
That’s what’s ultimately dangerous about this concept of “microaggresions”—even the demented fanatics who insist that such things actually exist will concede that the perpetrator may not harbor or exhibit any malice whatsoever. They may not even be the least bit conscious that they are being horrid bigots. Under this framework, bigotry is solely in the eyes of the accuser. No matter how pleasant your demeanor or how generously you act, you can still be bludgeoned over the head with baseless accusations of unconscious racism, and your accuser will feel like a good person for doing it.<br /><br />
I can’t imagine the agony of being a person of color on a college campus these days, what with all the microaggressions, microinsults, microinvalidations, microassaults, and especially all the microrape. Why, it’s enough to make a person of color want to drop out of college entirely. . . .<br /><br />
The study bears the catchy title of Racial microaggressions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Voices of students of color in the classroom. I highly recommend it as the finest comedic document I’ve seen so far this year.<br /><br />
Sponsored by the University of Illinois Racial Microaggressions Project and conducted by a specially appointed “Racial Microaggressions Team” whose associates have colorful first names such as Efadul, Shinwoo, Tanisha, Sang, and Artesha, the study concludes that it really, really, really, really sucks to be a person of color on campus these days.<br /><br />
For example, a robust two-fifths of the online study’s respondents claimed they “felt uncomfortable on campus because of their race.” . . .<br /><br />
Some sample testimonials from the POCs who claim to have been microaggressed upon:<br /><br />
<i>People do not necessarily say I do not belong, but I feel as if I do not when I am in a classroom and I am the one non-White person. (Latina, Female)</i> . . .</p></blockquote><p>
Do read the <a href="http://takimag.com/article/land_of_1000_microaggressions_jim_goad/print#axzz3anHkpzXT">entire article</a>. <br /><br />
And if the testimonial in that last quoted paragraph sounds familiar, it should. Not but a few weeks ago, <a href="http://www.wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-toxic-fruit-of-race-hustling-seeing.html">no less than Michelle Obama</a>, a woman who has led a truly charmed life and now sleeps in the White House, gave a speech noting how victimized she felt by, what in so many words, were microaggressions. She even went so far as to note that she, as a minority and like all minorities, felt very uncomfortable going into museums and other places of culture in America.<br /><br />
For another outrageous example, thoroughly explored by Heather MacDonald in <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_4_racial-microaggression.html">The Microaggression Farce</a>, there is the case of UCLA Professor Val Rust. He committed the <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/professor-accused-of-racism-for-correcting-grammar-capitalization">racist microaggression</a> of "correcting the capitalization, grammar and punctuation of a minority student's paper." This from Ms. MacDonald describes the insanity:</p>
<blockquote><p>Val Rust’s dissertation-prep class had devolved into a highly charged arena of competing victim ideologies, impenetrable to anyone outside academia. For example: Were white feminists who use “standpoint theory”—a feminist critique of allegedly male-centered epistemology—illegitimately appropriating the “testimonial” genre used by Chicana feminists to narrate their stories of oppression? Rust took little part in these “methodological” disputes—if one can describe “Chicana testimonials” as a scholarly “method”—but let the more theoretically up-to-date students hash it out among themselves. Other debates centered on the political implications of punctuation. Rust had changed a student’s capitalization of the word “indigenous” in her dissertation proposal to the lowercase, thus allegedly showing disrespect for the student’s ideological point of view. Tensions arose over Rust’s insistence that students use the more academic Chicago Manual of Style for citation format; some students felt that the less formal American Psychological Association conventions better reflected their political commitments. During one of these heated discussions, Rust reached over and patted the arm of the class’s most vociferous critical race–theory advocate to try to calm him down—a gesture typical of the physically demonstrative Rust, who is prone to hugs. The student, Kenjus Watson, dramatically jerked his arm away, as a burst of nervous energy coursed through the room.<br /><br />
After each of these debates, the self-professed “students of color” exchanged e-mails about their treatment by the class’s “whites.” (Asians are not considered “persons of color” on college campuses, presumably because they are academically successful.) Finally, on November 14, 2013, the class’s five “students of color,” accompanied by “students of color” from elsewhere at UCLA, as well as by reporters and photographers from the campus newspaper, made their surprise entrance into Rust’s class as a “collective statement of Resistance by Graduate Students of Color.” The protesters formed a circle around Rust and the remaining five students (one American, two Europeans, and two Asian nationals) and read aloud their “Day of Action Statement.” That statement suggests that Rust’s modest efforts to help students with their writing faced obstacles too great to overcome.</p></blockquote><p>
The same subjectivity now used to find racism rampant throughout our nation is equally apparent in the claims that our nation is involved in a "war on women," part of which is "rape culture." These claims come from radical feminists running the women's studies programs in our nation's ivory towers. Robert Stacey McCain, who has quite literally written the book on modern radical feminism - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Trouble-Radical-Feminism-Against/dp/1508613745">Sex Trouble</a> - <a href="http://theothermccain.com/2014/07/14/sex-trouble-radical-feminism-and-the-long-shadow-of-the-lavender-menace/">explains</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Once we go beyond simplistic sloganeering about “equality” and “choice” to examine feminism as political philosophy — the theoretical understanding to which Ph.D.s devote their academic careers — we discover a worldview in which men and women are assumed to be implacable antagonists, where males are oppressors and women are their victims, and where heterosexuality is specifically condemned as the means by which this male-dominated system operates.</p></blockquote><p>
Feminist professor Camille Paglia was sounding the alarm bells about this twenty years ago. This from her <a href="http://privat.ub.uib.no/BUBSY/playboy.htm">1995 interview with Playboy</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The women's movement is rooted in the belief that we don't even need men. . . .<br /><br />
It's a mess out there. Men are suspicious of women's intentions. Feminism has crippled them. They don't know when to make a pass. If they do make a pass, they don't know if they're going to end up in court. . .<br /><br />
. . . [Y]ou can't have the Stalinist situation we have in America right now, where any neurotic woman can make any stupid charge and destroy a man's reputation. If there is evidence of false accusation, the accuser should be expelled. Similarly, a woman who falsely accuses a man of rape should be sent to jail. My definition of sexual harassment is specific. It is only sexual harassment--by a man or a woman--if it is quid pro quo. That is, if someone says, "You must do this or I'm going to do that"--for instance, fire you. And whereas touching is sexual harassment, speech is not. I am militant on this. Words must remain free. The solution to speech is that women must signal the level of their tolerance--women are all different.</p></blockquote><p>
Far too many people still view the modern feminist movement as merely one seeking fair and equal treatment with men. That was true of feminism until the late 60's when, just like the civil rights movement, it was co-opted by our modern neo-Stalinist left. But these truly radical and insane interpretations of feminism - that our society is inherently discriminatory against women, that white males are the implacable oppressors of women, and that all heterosexual sex is rape - was still largely confined to corners of the ivory tower until recently. Thus, in 1995, when Prof. Paglia was sounding her warning, it was easy to dismiss her. Not so any longer. These utterly toxic views are now mainstream and driving policy throughout our government and in academia.<br /><br />
To justify their claim of "rape culture," the radical feminists rely on bogus statistics. <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/how-flawed-statistics-create-policies-that-ruin-lives/article/2563835">This from Ashe Schow</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The doom-sayers began with the statistic that 1 in 5 college women will be sexually assaulted to get their foot in the door. They screamed from the mountaintop that any woman in college will probably be raped any day now. Not in India, not in Iran, not in South Africa, but here. In America. On campus.<br /><br />
Using that false statistic (most are at least intelligent enough now to stop using it), activists began a crusade to right the injustices of the past (and potentially present) by swinging the pendulum to the other side. This, not surprisingly, has created a new problem of male students losing their due process rights and being treated as guilty until proven innocent.<br /><br />
But 1-in-5 isn't the only statistic being used to create these new policies. Now that the issue is consistently in the news, other statistics with equally dubious origins are cropping up.<br /><br />
One is that only 2 percent of rape accusations are false. This factoid traces back to a single source (Susan Brownmiller's 1975 book Against Our Will), which in turn cites a police officer talking about a study that no one has been able to find. But from this dubious claim springs the dogma that one must therefore believe all rape-accusers to be true victims.<br /><br />
Couple the notion that all accusers must be believed to another statistic — that relatively few men commit the majority of sexual assaults — and the prevailing logic becomes that anyone accused of sexual assault must immediately be treated as a serial rapist, because they likely are or will be.<br /><br />
This is how we get to a culture where an accusation is all the evidence needed in campus disciplinary hearings — and evidence and witnesses telling a different story are discounted.</p></blockquote><p>
With due process sacrificed, what the feminists have accomplished is to redefine rape and sexual assault so that they no longer require objective acts of rape or sexual assault. It is enough if, post coitus, a woman feels like she should not have engaged in the act of sex and wants to claim rape. Men are guilty until proven innocent. <br /><br />
Moreover, this view of heterosexual sex as rape is being <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/defining-nearly-all-sex-as-rape/article/2557530">written into black letter law</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>California’s “yes means yes” law turns the idea of sexual consent upside down. Suddenly, nearly all sex is rape, unless no person involved reports it as such.<br /><br />
Consent, under the California law that is spreading to other American universities, is required to be “ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time.” The law also states that “a lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent.” Also, previous sexual activity “should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.”<br /><br />
The law also states that incapacitation due to drugs or alcohol is considered nonconsensual. In theory, one could imagine that meaning black-out drunk or visibly not in control of one’s actions. But in practice, even having one or two drinks hours before sexual activity can constitute "too drunk to consent."<br /><br />
By this definition, the only sex that isn’t rape is sex where consent can be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt for every stage of the activity. Sure, that sounds reasonable, but the fact that one of the bill’s sponsors doesn’t know how anyone could prove consent tells you a lot about the bill.</p></blockquote><p>
The left's goal, to make and keep America balkanized, can only be sustained by taking away objective standards. How incredibly damaging it is to teach people that they are to view the world through the hypersensitive lenses of their gender or skin color, and that they are indeed being victimized if they simply feel that way. At this point, one could say the left's efforts with microaggressions and "rape culture" have reached the level of farce, but there is no humor in this game where the costs of the left's canards are so damaging to this nation. And there is no doubt that the groups hurt most are the women and the minorities who are taught that they are actually being victimized, then adjust their lives in respect of it.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-69265957694469021352015-05-25T10:45:00.000-04:002015-05-25T12:01:11.786-04:00Memorial Day 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdVFTN-YqIhYHO8FHKeM0yoqqk5a_8JHo_oUSANlK8Mf9LbcHAoLL0MmuuF64EJY2fHJKc-VXSLDXR6zRDBRpvBG230Bb9K-33abhQEpgnplBxn3RCi-Bwk5Uld-jW0pAWY8820Q6o0Q6r/s1600/Memorial+Day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdVFTN-YqIhYHO8FHKeM0yoqqk5a_8JHo_oUSANlK8Mf9LbcHAoLL0MmuuF64EJY2fHJKc-VXSLDXR6zRDBRpvBG230Bb9K-33abhQEpgnplBxn3RCi-Bwk5Uld-jW0pAWY8820Q6o0Q6r/s400/Memorial+Day.jpg" /></a></div>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-14173380642873207852015-05-16T09:48:00.000-04:002015-05-16T09:58:53.740-04:00Watcher's Council Forum: Who Are Your Three Favorite Heroes In American History?<p><br />
Each week the Watcher's Council hosts a forum as well as a weekly contest among the members for best post. This week's forum question is "Who Are Your Three Favorite Heroes In American History?" I have been kindly invited to respond.<br /><br /> </p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxENmjJgdic9nQ97EFjRi7dwHmmpsqvSMhsMObtNHP8VYde9Oyjty7LN-_Cget0ozJMBsfhNaPMezUwfiTczeCPGixo6s_EPbss1Dc2sg7EGnEFsSFm6qUYPwhFmYs27qb4ECAkEh3HbmA/s1600/God+Touching+Adam+Michaelangelo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxENmjJgdic9nQ97EFjRi7dwHmmpsqvSMhsMObtNHP8VYde9Oyjty7LN-_Cget0ozJMBsfhNaPMezUwfiTczeCPGixo6s_EPbss1Dc2sg7EGnEFsSFm6qUYPwhFmYs27qb4ECAkEh3HbmA/s320/God+Touching+Adam+Michaelangelo.png" /></a></div><p><br /><br />
The first great American hero is our deity, God, or at least our relationship to him through religion. Rev. Jonathan Mayhew was the first, in 1750, to argue that the source of our British rights was God and to articulate a doctrine that can be summed up in the phrase "resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." His writings spread throughout the colonies and were adopted in various forms by most of the "dissenting" religions. When, in 1775, Boston royalist Peter Oliver wrote of the causes of the Revolution, he placed the blame squarely on the "Black [robed] Regiment" of clergyman who so roused the colonists in righteous defiance against the British. It is fair to say that the dissenting clergy, from Georgia to Massachusetts, played an indispensable role in driving the Revolution. To paraphrase one Hessian soldier, this was not an American Revolution, it was a Presbyterian Revolution. <br /><br />
As late as January, 1776, it was not clear what we intended by our fight with the British. Most colonists still wanted no more than an adjustment of our relationship with Great Britain, not an independent nation. Yet in January, 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, the best selling book our nation has ever seen on a per capita basis but for the Bible. In it, Paine used largely biblical arguments against the divine right of Kings to rule. His arguments electrified the nation, and set us almost immediately on the path that ended less than six months later in the Declaration of Independence.<br /><br />
And then there were at least two "acts of God" during the Revolution that were so fortuitous and unusual as ought to leave in the most hardened atheist with a bit of uneasiness. The first was at The Battle of Long Island. The British had decimated our forces and had surrounded Washington and his 9,000 men. Had the British completed their attack, the Revolution would likely have ended there. Washington ordered a night withdrawal by boat. That night, a very unusual fog descended on the area, one so dense that soldiers said they couldn't see further than 6 feet to their front. The fog allowed the withdraw to continue through night to the dawn and after, until all 9,000 soldiers had crossed to safety.<br /><br />
The second "act of God" occurred as the British, in June 1776, attempted to capture the wealthiest port city in the colonies, Charleston, S.C. Had Britain succeeded, the whole nature of the Revolution would have changed. The centerpiece of the colonist's defense of Charleston was a half built fort on Sullivan's Island that the British expected to easily defeat with an infantry attack across the ford separating Isle of Palms from Sullivan's Island, a ford at low tide that virtually never exceeded three feet. Yet in June, 1776, a highly unusual wind pattern developed and, even at low tide, the water at the ford was over 7 feet deep. With the British infantry stopped cold, the fort survived the most devastating bombardment of the war even while the colonists wreaked destruction on the British ships, saving Charleston from occupation for a critical three years.<br /><br />
And then, of course, it was this view of God as the source of our rights that animated our Founders. Our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not bestowed by man. They are natural rights that come from God. The first and most important hero of our nation must be God. <br /><br /></p>
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The second most important person in American history is George Washington. People who study the Revolution call him the "indispensable man," and that he was. He took charge of an army of amateurs and led them against the world's superpower of the era. He was in an impossible situation against impossible odds.<br /><br />
Washington was never a great military commander. He was outfoxed all too often on the battlefield. Indeed, by December 1776, he had been beaten so badly over the preceding six months that everyone on both sides thought the Revolution was over but for the signing of surrender documents. Yet Washington, a man whose persistence and refusal to surrender was inhuman, on Dec. 25, 1776, led a beaten force of 2,500 across the Delaware River in horrendous conditions. The next morning, his soldiers surprised the best light infantry forces in America, the Hessians at Trenton, and won a victory so stunning that it literally saved the Revolution. <br /><br />
And while Washington's command of the Continental Army over the next seven years was critically important, it was his actions at and after the end of the war that proved of importance equal to his victory at Trenton. The history of revolutions was equally a history of successful military commanders taking power as dictator or King, from Caesar to Cromwell. But not with George Washington, who not merely voluntarily relinquished all power at the end of the war, but put an end to a revolt of officers who had not been paid. <br /><br />
Then it was Washington, called out of retirement, who lent his credibility to the Constitutional Convention that resulted in the drafting of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. And while all knew that Washington would be elected President - he was elected to two terms with 100% of the electoral college votes - Washington easily could have chosen to be President for life. But instead, he opted to go back into retirement after two terms. Washington was a hero and perhaps the single man indispensable to the creation of our nation.<br /><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlgZ3JU296O1qxITHSqrvrgFgVJQJJ0jY5hyphenhyphenYR3nHtm0xUghvv7_1bmZfUFv1mBOdSOHUnLuUY86SLDiu7y0ken8ya-rdciib7oAImuNoWQy2VG6vLA1Mw9HZ0j0ANDOaPmp9K-3KQxyLR/s1600/martin-luther-king-jr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlgZ3JU296O1qxITHSqrvrgFgVJQJJ0jY5hyphenhyphenYR3nHtm0xUghvv7_1bmZfUFv1mBOdSOHUnLuUY86SLDiu7y0ken8ya-rdciib7oAImuNoWQy2VG6vLA1Mw9HZ0j0ANDOaPmp9K-3KQxyLR/s320/martin-luther-king-jr.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /> <p>
The third choice for American hero is harder. There are so many who could legitimately take this position. Let me just give it to Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. <br /><br />
The history of America's treatment of blacks is indeed a mark on this nation. Even after the end of slavery and the enshrinement of equal rights in our Constitution at the end of the Civil War, racism and unequal treatment were still rampant in this nation. Rev. King was born in 1929. He did not start the Civil Rights movement, but he became its most important voice. He shamed white America with their failure to live up to the promise of this nation, enshrined in our first Founding document, The Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal." Dr. King brought a moral message that our nation could not ignore, and he pushed it relentlessly, at great danger to himself, and he did so with non-violence. His speech in 1963 in Washington D.C., now known as the "I Have A Dream" speech, is perhaps the most recognizable speech in our nation's history, and rightly so. He finished the speech with a stirring call for an America where people are judged "not . . . by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."<br /><br />
In our unique nation, Rev. King's call for equality was not only a moral clarion call, but a necessity if we are to survive as a melting pot. Since Rev. King's death, the movement he started has been wholly bastardized by the left for their own ends. That does not in any way detract from Rev. King's message, indeed, it only increases the need for us fulfill his vision.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-78022414553414904242015-05-14T18:26:00.000-04:002015-05-14T18:26:13.030-04:00The Toxic Fruit Of Race Hustling - Seeing The World "Through A Glass, Darkly"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VxQGQE8wl_6cm91iP-OIqw-MAvSyW6l-wqD2UTYvPYb7jC37kQFf1HpTq-AU7NIxQwBf49USLXegozIwRm7h4sWiEycD7D8nb8CXVsDZSFY9_FmIFF9LRijwZSor3bgMdNu1htWGwPjh/s1600/race+hustling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VxQGQE8wl_6cm91iP-OIqw-MAvSyW6l-wqD2UTYvPYb7jC37kQFf1HpTq-AU7NIxQwBf49USLXegozIwRm7h4sWiEycD7D8nb8CXVsDZSFY9_FmIFF9LRijwZSor3bgMdNu1htWGwPjh/s400/race+hustling.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /><br />
Having spent a good portion of my life in the infantry, a true melting pot of races, I never saw racism nor the toxic effects of the left's racial politics until I left the military and entered civilian life. We were brothers and sisters in arms and all Americans. Nothing so perfectly captures that as this video of a retired MSG during the Baltimore riots.<br /><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="275" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sN1qSRgKoU0" width="475"></iframe><br /><br />
The attitude displayed by that man is pervasive throughout the military. There is no victim group mentality among minorities in the military. Tragically, the same cannot be said of our nation outside the military. Blacks in the civilian world are fed a steady diet of propaganda that they are victims of pervasive racism in this country and that any problems common to their group are all as a result of external racism. They are literally programmed to view everything in life through the lens of their skin color and to interpret anything negative that occurs to be the result of external racism. It is a deeply distorted, toxic vision of life.<br /><br />
Exhibit No. One, from <a href="http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2015/05/13/this-might-be-the-most-offensive-portrayal-of-race-relations-that-youll-ever-see/">Walter Hudson writing at PJM</a>:</p>
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<blockquote><p>A Facebook friend of mine just set the above image as his profile cover photo. He’s an activist in the Black Lives Matter movement whom I became acquainted with while working on an election issue in my state.<br /><br />
I look at this picture, and the first thing I think is: Wow. That’s… that’s really offensive.<br /><br />
Then I look at it some more. I think about it. Then I realize that for some people, like my Facebook friend, this accurately represents how they perceive the world in which they live.<br /><br />
We can criticize that. We can tell them that they are wrong to view the world that way. We can insist that things aren’t as bad as an image like this makes them out to be. And we may be right. But maybe we should stop and consider how terrifying life has to get for this to become your perception.<br /><br />
What do we do with that? How can we have anything approaching a productive conversation about race relations and criminal justice issues when starting from such divergent perceptions of the status quo?</p></blockquote><p>
What do we do indeed. The left's message, that racism is pervasive in America and the single major problem blacks face in this country is believed throughout, it would seem, much of the blacks in this nation at every socioeconomic level.<br /><br />
Exhibit No. Two is Michelle Obama. She is a woman who sees racism in <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/395052/michelle-obamas-tales-racialized-victimhood-michelle-malkin">innocent events</a> and <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418288/first-ladys-moving-untrue-stories-racial-slights-michelle-malkin">ready to claim racism at the drop of a hat</a>. Indeed, as <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418274/mrs-obama-i-feel-alienated-and-thats-proof-americas-racism-ian-tuttle">Ian Tuttle points out</a>, for Ms. Obama, and indeed, for all of the left's victim's groups, the mere feeling of alienation is taken as proof positive of it's reality. In Ms. Obama's case, racism exists because she subjectively feels it, irrespective of reality.<br /><br />
Michelle Obama has led a charmed life, from attending Princeton and then Harvard Law to a successful career and now to First Lady. Racism has not held this woman back. And yet, in giving the Commencement Address to Tuskesgee University last weekend, she spoke of how hard her life has been having to endure racist sleights. It was <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/05/michelle-obama-the-first-thing-we-have-to-do.php">astounding</a>.<br /><br />
Exhibit No. Three is Saida Grundy, newly hired professor at Boston University, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/13/living/feat-boston-university-saida-grundy-race-tweets/index.html">who seems quite the reverse racist</a> -- something wholly tolerated on the left. Indeed, our universities seem full of such people, who <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2010/04/roots-of-slavery-race-hustlers-holy.html">teach grievance, hatred and the canard of pervasive racism</a> as part of a curriculum. As to Ms. Grundy:</p>
<blockquote><p>. . . [T]he Boston Globe reported some of the tweets: "why is white america so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?" and "every MLK week i commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses. and every year i find it nearly impossible."</p></blockquote><p>
This is yet another woman who has apparently not been held back by racism, yet she sees all white males as a "problem?" Not merely is Ms. Grundy's philosophy abhorrent and insane, it is equally as abhorrent and insane that Boston University fully intends to employ this women to teach at the institution.<br /><br />
The left's goal is to keep America balkanized. They are certainly succeeding. And while the extinguishment of racism on any sort of appreciable scale in this country has seen significant portion of blacks in this country advance into the upper and middle class, there is <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-watchers-question-how-would-you.html">a large substrata of blacks that have not</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>By virtually every metric, while the lives of blacks have improved, and while many black individuals have been able to embrace the opportunities this country has to offer, a very substantial portion of blacks have not. It is obscene that, in America, <a href="http://npc.umich.edu/poverty/">some 25% of blacks</a> live in poverty. It is obscene that, where in 1965, less than 30% of black children were born into a single parent family,<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/opinion/when-liberals-blew-it.html">that number is now over 70%</a>. It is obscene that that <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/frontpagemag-com/david-horowitz-the-lefts-destruction-of-inner-city-communities/">30 to 40 percent of inner city kids don’t graduate from school</a>, and a very substantial number who do graduate are functionally illiterate. It is obscene that blacks are <a href="http://www.dailystormer.com/federal-statistics-show-blacks-are-39-times-more-likely-to-commit-violent-crime-against-whites-than-vice-versa/">seven times more likely</a> to commit violent crime than other races. And it is obscene that these problems are cyclical. Nothing the left has done for blacks has broken this cycle, and it all portends to get much worse as cities, where large numbers of blacks congregate and many of whom take public sector jobs, <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/US/cities-bankruptcy-after-detroit/2013/08/06/id/519081/">fall into bankruptcy and economic chaos</a> from the failure of the blue political / economic model.</p></blockquote><p>
As toxic as the fruit of race hustling is on the left to keep blacks balkanized and feeling victimized by racism, the penultimate cost of that effort is being paid first and foremost by blacks themselves. And for every black in the civilian world that climbs into the middle or upper class, one has to wonder how many are held back nursing grievance politics instead of focusing on the opportunities available to them. <br /><br />
When the blacks rioted in Baltimore last month, doing millions of dollars in damage to the businesses and stores that serve their neighborhoods, they were acting out over perceived racial conflict with the police that led to the death of Freddie Gray. To put that into perspective, there are a <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-baltimore-riots-problems-in-black.html">host of problems affecting blacks in inner city Baltimore</a>, from poverty to unemployment to single parent homes and high crime. Freddie Gray was one of <a href="http://chamspage.blogspot.com/2014/12/2015-baltimore-city-homicidesmurders.html">87 homicides having occurred</a> in Baltimore City already this year. The reality is that a black living in Baltimore City has exponentially more to fear from other blacks than they ever have to fear from the police. Yet none of these other homicides send people out into the street or raise the community in arms to try and stop this devastation in their communities. It is only because blacks are fed a steady diet of victimhood and grievance politics that they are primed to riot, rather than address the real problems they face.<br /><br />
We'll give the last word to a man living in "the hood," as he describes it, Mr. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/eric.mickies?hc_location=stream">Eric Thomas</a>:<br /><br />
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<br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-55414458431365447562015-05-13T08:34:00.001-04:002015-05-13T08:34:31.147-04:00The Bovine Revolution Has Begun<br />
One of my favorite novelty songs of all time, Cows With Gun. Enjoy:<br ><br />
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-73673874596639484152015-05-13T07:10:00.000-04:002015-05-14T11:41:24.198-04:00Twenty Two Climate Truths & One Rant (Updated)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7926W-RrRz0AChEHFlXqrenT-Abpm5RclPyMLCVDnhcJQOx4l357AqfEgz30KqmdjVVo1KfYJQjScDQEQNGfpFAqatopwo285OJp5FiHKRP2-79yAzMFg-xIBmGB0jo0OhmPiqFeHjjg5/s1600/globalwarmingdebate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7926W-RrRz0AChEHFlXqrenT-Abpm5RclPyMLCVDnhcJQOx4l357AqfEgz30KqmdjVVo1KfYJQjScDQEQNGfpFAqatopwo285OJp5FiHKRP2-79yAzMFg-xIBmGB0jo0OhmPiqFeHjjg5/s400/globalwarmingdebate.jpg" /></a></div><p>
<br /><br />
From WUWT, a <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/22-very-inconvenient-climate-truths/">particularly good summary</a> of the gaping holes in Anthropogenic Global Warming theory (hereinafter, "AGW"):
</p><blockquote><p><b><i>The 22 Inconvenient Truths</i></b><br /><br />
1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)<br /><br />
2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?<br /><br />
[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays] (discussion: p. 7)<br /><br />
3. The amount of CO2 of the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 9)<br /><br />
4. The lifetime of CO2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 10)<br /><br />
5. The changes of the Mean Global Temperature are more or less sinusoidal with a well defined 60 year period. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid(s) and hence the next years should be cooler as has been observed after 1950. (discussion: p. 12)<br /><br />
6. The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring with a spectrometer what is left from the radiation of a broadband infrared source (say a black body heated at 1000°C) after crossing the equivalent of some tens or hundreds of meters of the air, shows that the main CO2 bands (4.3 µm and 15 µm) have been replaced by the emission spectrum of the CO2 which is radiated at the temperature of the trace-gas. (discussion: p. 14)<br /><br />
7. In some geological periods the CO2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. (discussion: p. 17)<br /><br />
8. The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year. (discussion: p. 18)<br /><br />
9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist. (discussion: p. 20)<br /><br />
10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative. (discussion: p.22)<br /><br />
11. The maximum surface of the Antarctic ice-pack has been increasing every year since we have satellite observations. (discussion: p. 24)<br /><br />
12. The sum of the surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctic icepacks is about constant, their trends are phase-opposite; hence their total albedo is about constant. (discussion: p. 25)<br /><br />
13. The measurements from the 3000 oceanic ARGO buoys since 2003 may suggest a slight decrease of the oceanic heat content between the surface and a depth 700 m with very significant regional differences. (discussion: p. 27)<br /><br />
14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO2 or CH4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen. (discussion:p. 29)<br /><br />
15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ? (discussion: p. 30)<br /><br />
16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body. (discussion: p. 32)<br /><br />
17. The temperatures have always driven the CO2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)<br /><br />
18. The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature. (discussion: p. 36)<br /><br />
19. Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature. (discussion: p. 37)<br /><br />
20. The forecasts of the “climate models” are diverging more and more from the observations. A model is not a scientific proof of a fact and if proven false by observations (or falsified) it must be discarded, or audited and corrected. We are still waiting for the IPCC models to be discarded or revised; but alas IPCC uses the models financed by the taxpayers both to “prove” attributions to greenhouse gas and to support forecasts of doom. (discussion: p. 40)<br /><br />
21. As said by IPCC in its TAR (2001) “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Has this state of affairs changed since 2001? Surely not for scientific reasons. (discussion: p. 43)<br /><br />
22. Last but not least the IPCC is neither a scientific organization nor an independent organization: the summary for policy makers, the only part of the report read by international organizations, politicians and media is written under the very close supervision of the representative of the countries and of the non-governmental pressure groups.<br /><br />
The governing body of the IPCC is made of a minority of scientists almost all of them promoters of the environmentalist ideology, and a majority of state representatives and of non-governmental green organizations. (discussion: p. 46)</p></blockquote><p>
Do read the <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/12/22-very-inconvenient-climate-truths/">entire post</a> along with the explanatory appendix. This is as good a summary as I've seen in some time. The first two facts noted by the author are really the meat of it all. The foundational theory of AGW is that, as more CO2 is pumped into our atmosphere, temperatures will rise proportionately. There is no support for this theory in the historical record predating modern temperature records, nor does the theory find any empirical support in the modern records, given that we have been pumping large amounts of CO2 into the air since 1997 with NO corresponding rise in temperature.<br /><br />
I am always amazed when the left, most of whom seem to embrace the AGW theory, accuse the right of being <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2012/02/science-anti-science-peer-review.html">"anti-science" or "science deniers."</a> It stands reality on its head. In a sane world, the gaping holes in AGW theory would lead scientists to discard the theory and start anew. The reality is that, as more facts show the fatal flaws with AGW theory, the left just becomes more strident in trying to shut down debate and in their claims that "the science is settled."<br /><br />
The truth is that there is <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2009/12/climategate-update-24-watermelons.html">much more than science at stake for the AGW crowd</a>. For a very significant number of players, there are hundreds of billions of dollars at play in this scam, whether from carbon credits, renewable energy scams, cushy jobs at foundations, or even outright transfers of wealth from wealthy countries to third world nations (all to be administered by the UN, of course). And there seem to be more than a few watermelons (green on the outside, red on the inside) pushing this AGW canard for whom the thought of saving Gaia comes with an underlying motivation to <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-new-green-very-much-red-world-order.html">do away with capitalism and democracy</a>. Then there are the scientists riding the gravy train of grants and recognition who have, in some cases, falsified or presented deeply misleading research, as well as attempted to severely restrict the voices of any who would raise questions about AGW. And lastly, there are the <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/03/un-reason-able-science.html">useful idiots at the bottom</a> who unthinkingly embrace AGW and go to bed thinking themselves not only morally superior for doing so, but as they are constantly told by AGW cheerleaders, much smarter than those on the right who object to AGW on the basis of unreliable and contrary data.<br /><br />
No area of science is <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2010/02/summary-of-not-so-settled-science-of.html">more bastardized than "climate science."</a> I have no problems following science experiments wherever they might lead, so long as the scientific method is practiced. But all too often in climate science, there is a complete failure in this regards. It is criminal the number of climate scientists who fail to adhere to the scientific method, <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/03/the-peerless-pitfalls-of-peer-review.php">trying to claim peer review as the gold standard of reliability</a> rather than a complete posting of their experiment in such detail as to allow for reproduction and verification by other scientists. Even as I write this, the EPA is preparing to issue regulations that will cost our economy tens of billions of dollars, and which regulations are based on "<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/29/senators-target-epas-use-of-secret-science-to-justify-regs/">secret science</a>" that has never been made public so as to subject it to reproduction or verification. It is a mockery to call it "science." It is faith being sold as science. <br /><br />
Yet another significant concern I have is with the <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/05/noaa-caught-rewriting-us-temperature-history-again.php">numerous unexplained changes to the historical record</a> of our temperature data, something that Jim Hansen, then at NASA, started doing in the late 90's and which continues to this day. As it stands, I have no faith whatsoever in the historical temperature record relied upon by the UN IPCC. Though, it should be noted, those records only begin about the 1880's, with the first relatively reliable efforts to collect data from thermometers.<br /><br />
This is not an academic debate about AGW. People's lives across the world are being effected by this scam. Hundreds of billions of dollars that could be used productively are being wasted in this fraud. Economies are being strangled by regulations designed to drive out a trace gas necessary for life on this planet. It is a travesty and, indeed, criminal. A very large number of people need to be jailed over this fraud.<br /><br />
Update: A perfect illustration of why <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418263/germanys-green-power-program-crushes-poor-robert-zubrin">such green energy scams are unforgivable in their impacts</a> on people's lives comes from Germany:</p>
<blockquote><p>According to EU data, Germany’s average residential electricity rate is 29.8 cents per kilowatt hour. This is approximately double the 14.2 cents and 15.9 cents per kWh paid by residents of Germany’s neighbors Poland and France, respectively, and almost two and a half times the U.S. average of 12 cents per kWh. Germany’s industrial electricity rate of 16 cents per kWh is also much higher than France’s 9.6 cents or Poland’s 8.3 cents. The average German per capita electricity consumption is 0.8 kilowatts. At a composite rate of 24 cents per kWh, this works out to a yearly bill of $1,700 per person, experienced either directly in utility bills or indirectly through increased costs of goods and services. The median household income in Germany is $33,000, so if we assume an average of two people per household, the electricity cost would amount to more than 10 percent of available income. And that is for the median-income household. The amount of electricity that people need does not scale in proportion to their paychecks. For the rich, $1,700 per year in electric bills might be a pittance, or at most a nuisance. But for the poor who are just scraping by, such a burden is simply brutal.</p></blockquote><p>
HT: <a href="http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/206773/">Instapundit</a><br /><br />
While here at home, we are but a half step behind Germany:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to finalize its Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce power plant carbon dioxide emissions by 30% from 2005 levels over the next 15 years.
Looking at some of the best-case scenarios for CO2 reductions, the plan could potentially cut roughly 300 million tons of CO2 annually.
Because global man-made CO2 emissions reach roughly 30 billion tons annually, it’s estimated that the EPA plan could result in a possible 1% reduction in annual man-made CO2.
Overall, man-made CO2 accounts for only 4% of total atmospheric CO2. So the true atmospheric reduction in CO2 from the EPA plan would be approximately 0.04%.
The cost for this plan is estimated at $50 billion annually, with the loss of roughly 15,000 U.S. jobs each year. Increases in household utility bills could reach $100 billion annually.</p></blockquote>
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-18134091343063869472015-05-11T12:27:00.000-04:002015-05-11T12:30:21.274-04:00Wolf Bytes: The Freedom To Draw Mohammed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQAhRQ3vjTBnaiROLvvwR3SQka_ZDRtTal3-OWKWpa2-m-U_T3GX4UCRja31MZsRVfrkRJXKrHeTKDsCBaEx5Z4cQZorJ3Rlv22SmWN3Wbk16mEN5JioNzy2_Ca3tv7OcA675uFknRK6M7/s1600/geller+winning+picture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQAhRQ3vjTBnaiROLvvwR3SQka_ZDRtTal3-OWKWpa2-m-U_T3GX4UCRja31MZsRVfrkRJXKrHeTKDsCBaEx5Z4cQZorJ3Rlv22SmWN3Wbk16mEN5JioNzy2_Ca3tv7OcA675uFknRK6M7/s400/geller+winning+picture.jpg" /></a></div>
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<blockquote><p><i>The picture above, drawn by former Muslim Bosch Fawstin, was chosen as the <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Bosch-Fawstin-draw-prophet-winner/2015/05/04/id/642554/">winner of the Draw Mohammed contest</a> held in Garland, Texas on 3 May 2015.</i></p></blockquote><p>
<i><b>UN Reveals Horrifying Islamist Sex Markets</b></i><br /><br />
From <a href="http://allenbwest.com/2015/05/un-reveals-horrifying-islamist-sex-markets/">Allen West's blog</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Yes, Islamists are terribly offended by pictures of Mohammed, but they don’t seem to have much problem with enslaving, raping and brutalizing women. Nope, that’s just business as usual – at least according to a report prepared by a United Nations official.<br /><br />
As reported by the Daily Mail, “an Islamic State terrorist group forced a sex slave to marry 20 fighters and even made her undergo surgery each time to restore her virginity, a United Nations official said.<br /><br />
The group paraded and traded Syrian and Iraqi girls in ‘slave markets’ before the victims were shipped to other provinces, according to Zainab Bangura, special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, who travelled to five countries and interviewed dozens of women and young girls who had survived brutal sexual abuse.<br /><br />
She said the girls were routinely stripped naked before being categorized and shipped off.<br /><br />
‘ISIL have institutionalized sexual violence and the brutalization of women as a central aspect of their ideology and operations, using it as a tactic of terrorism to advance their key strategic objectives. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
I am waiting for all the neo-Stalinist left, including the radical feminists in the U.S., to immediately rush to condemn these atrocities and the Salafi ideology being used to justify them in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . <br /><br />
"<a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/05/pamela-geller-in-time-magazine-a-response-to-my-critics-this-is-a-war">PAM GELLER IS AN ISLAMAPHOBE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATH OF TWO MUSLIM MEN (who wanted to commit mass murder)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</a>"<br /><br />
Okay, not the condemnation I was expecting. Actually, for the most part, that has been the response from the left. But to give credit where credit is due, see the next eye-opening entry below:<br /><br />
<i><b>Salon Author Says It Is Time Progressives Faced The Truth About Islam</b></i><br /><br />
After a full throated defense of Pam Geller, and in between a slander of all three monotheistic religions, Jeffrey Taylor at Salon writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>What is it about Islam that simultaneously both motivates jihadis to kill and so many progressives to exculpate the religion, even when the killers leave no doubt about why they act? The second part of the question is easier to dispense with than the first. Progressives by nature seek common ground and believe people to be mostly rational actors – hence the desire to blame crime on social ills. Unfamiliarity with Islam’s tenets also plays a role, plus, I believe, the frightening future we would seem to be facing as more and more Muslims immigrate to the West, and the world becomes increasingly integrated. Best just to talk of poverty and the like, or a few “bad apples.” But to respond to the question’s first part, we need to put aside our p.c. reading glasses and examine Islam’s basic elements from a rationalist’s perspective. Islam as a faith would not concern progressives, except that some of its adherents choose to act as parts of its dogma ordain, which, to put it mildly, violates the social contract underpinning the lives of the rest of us. . . .<br /><br />
The canonical glorification of death for the sake Islam, or martyrdom, similarly belies those who would argue that the religion’s nature is pacific. . . .<br /><br />
All those who, à la Reza Aslan, maintain that Muslims today do not necessarily read the Quran literally have lost the argument before it begins. What counts is that there are those (ISIS, say, and al-Qaida) who do, and they are taking action based on their beliefs. To the contention, “ISIS and al-Qaida don’t represent Islam!” the proper response is, “that’s what you say. They disagree.” No single recognized Muslim clerical body exists to refute them. . . .<br /><br />
Islam’s doctrinaire positions on women are infamous enough to merit no repetition here. Their sum effect is to render women chattel to men, as sex objects and progenitors of offspring, and foster the most misogynistic conditions on the planet: nineteen of twenty of the worst countries for women, according to the World Economic Forum, are Muslim-majority. Some Muslim countries are deemed more progressive than others, but their progressivity varies inversely with the extent to which Islam permeates their legal codes and customary laws – the less, the better. Not liberal at all, that.<br /><br />
The above are the stark doctrinal and practical realities of which no honest progressive could approve, and which form the bases of the religion. Regardless of what the peaceful majority of Muslims are doing, as ISIS’s beguiling ideology spreads, we are likely to face an ever more relentless, determined Islamist assault. We can delude ourselves no longer: violence is an emergent property deriving from Islam’s inherently intolerant precepts and dogma. The rising number of ethnic Europeans mesmerized by Islam who set off to enroll in the ranks of ISIS attests to this; and may prefigure serious disruptions, especially in France, the homeland of a good number of them, once they start returning. There is nothing “phobic” about recognizing this. Recognize it we must, and steel ourselves for what’s to come.<br /><br />
This is no call to disrespect Muslims as people, but we should not hesitate to speak frankly about the aspects of their faith we find problematic. . . .<br /><br />
. . . We must stop traducing reason by branding people “Islamophobes,” and start celebrating our secularism, remembering that only it offers true freedom for the religious and non-religious alike. And we should reaffirm our humanistic values, in our conviction that we have, as Carlyle wrote, “One life – a little gleam of time between two eternities,” and need to make the most of it for ourselves and others while we can. There is nothing else.<br /><br />
This is not a battle we have chosen; the battle has chosen us.<br /><br />
It’s time to fight back, and hard.</p></blockquote><p>
Amen. That should be required reading for all the progs in this land, as well as, it would seem, several blowhards on the right. Yes, Congressman King and Bill O'Reilly, I'm talking to you.<br /><br />
<i><b>Kirsten Powers & How The Left Is Killing Free Speech</b></i><br /><br />
Today's left can best be described as neo-Stalinist. They are enemies of freedom of speech and would much prefer to demonize rather than debate. Gone from the left are such American icons as Scoop Jackson and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. But their breed is not completely extinguished. Some exemplars remain, most notably Kirsten Powers, a Fox News contributor as well as a columnist for USA Today and the Daily Beast. She and her new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Silencing-Left-Killing-Speech/dp/1621573702">The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech</a>, are the subject of very good article by <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/10/the_lefts_crusade_against_free_speech_126535.html">Peter Berkowitz at RCP</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>. . . This is not to say that all members of the left today are instinctively intolerant and bent on stifling liberty of thought and discussion. Yet all too rare is the contemporary liberal who is instinctively appalled by the contempt for speech emanating from Democratic Party politicians, the university world and elite media, and who is willing to call his or her comrades to account.<br /><br />
Kirsten Powers is one of these rare liberals. In "The Silencing,” she methodically documents—and exposes the hypocrisy, incoherence, and sheer contempt for evidence and argument that underlie—the delegitimization of dissent that has become the stock in trade of what she characterizes as the "illiberal left." . . .<br /><br />
Kirsten Powers is one of these rare liberals. In "The Silencing,” she methodically documents—and exposes the hypocrisy, incoherence, and sheer contempt for evidence and argument that underlie—the delegitimization of dissent that has become the stock in trade of what she characterizes as the "illiberal left."</p></blockquote><p>
Because she is intellectually honest, while I disagree with her more often than not, I always have to make sure that my disagreements are on sound footing and give due consideration to her arguments. She is a voice of reason to be taken seriously by people on both sides of the aisle.<br /><br />
<i><b>The Regulatory Bureaucracy</b></i><br /><br />
Nothing pushes my hot button more than talk of our regulatory agencies and their unconstitutional abuse of power, something I <a href="http://www.wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/05/obama-death-of-our-republic.html">bang the drum about constantly</a>. But beyond that is their practical effect. Powerline explains <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/05/the-crisis-of-the-administrative-state-part-3.php">here</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The regulation of low-cost competitive street retail isn’t limited just to food service where legitimate health concerns come into play; according to a report from the Institute for Justice, 45 of the nation’s 50 largest cities maintain extensive regulation of mobile vending of a wide range of products with no health risks at all (such as handmade clothing), “making it needlessly difficult or even impossible to set up shop in many cities.” Somehow the “disparate impact” these regulatory schemes have on lower-income minorities never reaches the threshold of a civil rights issue.</p></blockquote><p>
Bookworm Room, in a brilliant post several years ago that I cannot find at the moment, made the point that the only legitimate use of regulation was to protect us against those dangers that are not open and obvious to a reasonable person. All too often, regulations are misused to protect business from competition or to enforce ideological goals, neither of which is a legitimate use of the regulatory power. Were we ever to apply Ms. Bookworm's rule of thumb, I would imagine we could do away with upward of 75% of the regulations now crushing down upon us.<br /><br />
<i><b>Malarial Parasites With Woodies</b></i><br /><br />
There is an article today at Real Clear Science, "<a href="http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/in-perfect-sync-with-viagra-malaria-down-population-up">Viagra Could Halt Malaria By 'Stiffening' Infected Cells.</a>" Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite that enters the human blood stream through the bite of a mosquito. It then reproduces in vast numbers, causing debilitating, potentially even deadly illness. It is a scourge in many countries, particularly Africa, so this is big news.<br /><br />
If you read into the article though, you'll find that the viagra isn't affecting cells, it's affecting the parasites. It is, in essence, giving them a woody, which, it just so happens, makes it easier for the spleen to trap the parasites, stopping reproduction. There is something just so, so wrong about giving any male the gift of wood, then using said woody to entrap him. But I guess that is human nature, is it not. From humans to parasites apparently, males sporting wood oft are easily led astray.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-49407449250236864492015-05-10T22:40:00.002-04:002015-05-11T04:31:27.321-04:00Watcher's Council Forum: How Will The Supreme Court Rule On Same-Sex Marriage? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIzcl2H8vuxW92AuGiGqDpE23zgll6TnCQvQrVOUU8Ph_vmhJjdKXeE6Vb2Ia5Q7rUciViCuntv6Q1AdR5dOpoQyeXSiELo9vyaesuuBjWrwqc3HoXaPDda6wD7biVDCLbqC4gfSq9NkAa/s1600/protests-against-gaymarriage-FL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIzcl2H8vuxW92AuGiGqDpE23zgll6TnCQvQrVOUU8Ph_vmhJjdKXeE6Vb2Ia5Q7rUciViCuntv6Q1AdR5dOpoQyeXSiELo9vyaesuuBjWrwqc3HoXaPDda6wD7biVDCLbqC4gfSq9NkAa/s320/protests-against-gaymarriage-FL.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /><br />
Each week, the <a href="http://www.watcherofweasels.org/">Watcher's Council</a> hosts a forum on a topic du jour, as well as a weekly contest among the members for <a href="http://www.watcherofweasels.org/the-council-has-spoken-our-watchers-council-results-13/">best post</a>. This week's forum question is "how will the Supreme Court rule on same sex marriage?" I have kindly been invited to respond. <br /><br />
Update: The forum is now posted <a href="http://www.watcherofweasels.org/forum-how-will-the-supreme-court-rule-on-same-sex-marriage/">here</a>. Do click over to see how the rest of the respondents answered this question. <br /><br />
The Supreme Court is currently considering same sex marriage in the case of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-will-hear-historic-arguments-in-gay-marriage-cases/2015/04/27/083d9302-ed24-11e4-8666-a1d756d0218e_story.html">Obergefell v. Hodges</a>. I expect that they will decide the case by discovering that there is a right to gay marriage in the <a href="http://constitutionus.com/">Constitution</a>. It has been, they will claim, perfectly hidden in plain sight in the Constitution for a century and a half.<br /><br />
I also expect the Court's decision to break the camel's back as these supremely arrogant judges force left wing social policy down the throat of this nation and begin a final, direct assault on the <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/04/watchers-council-forum-is-religious.html">rights of conscience of the religious in our land</a>. If you thought the activist <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/363904/how-roe-happened-interview">Roe v. Wade decision</a> caused turmoil, I can assure you, you haven't seen anything yet. As <a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/2014/10/20/in-idaho-gay-marriage-is-in-direct-conflict-with-religious-rights-under-the-first-amendment/">Bookworm Room pointed out</a> some time ago, unlike with abortion, this decision will, for the first time in our nation's history, make it unlawful to live by the same Judeo-Christian beliefs that have been part of our nation since the Founding.<br /><br />
As I pointed out in <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/06/supreme-court-originalism-activism-and.html">The Supreme Court: Originalism, Judicial Activism, & America's Future</a>, there are two schools of Constitutional interpretation, originalism and activism:</p>
<blockquote><p>Originalists attempt to interpret the Constitution by determining what the people who drafted it and voted for it understood it to mean at the time. An intellectually honest originalist does not announce new policy, he or she interprets history and precedent. That is a bit oversimplified - originalism is certainly not always that clean and can become muddled as precedent builds (and see the discussion here). But because there is always a strong bias to stay limited to what the Constitution says and what the drafters meant, it provides a carefully circumscribed role for unelected judges, thus paying the maximum deference to democracy.<br /><br />
When a Court stops interpreting the meaning of the Constitution and starts to impose its own policy views under the color of a "living constitution," it transforms into a Politburo legislating by fiat. Judicial activists and the left who champions them are the people who see an activist Court as a way around democracy and an irreplaceable tool to remake society.</p></blockquote><p>
The left has been relying on judicial activism for the past century to work fundamental, unconstitutional and non-democratic changes to our society, and they have engaged in what has amounted to a <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2015/04/watchers-council-forum-is-religious.html">jihad on the Judeo-Christian religions</a>. Finding that a right to homosexual marriage has been hiding in the Fourteenth Amendment for the past 147 years would set the stage for the last step in that jihad.<br /><br />
The <a href="http://constitutionus.com/#x14">Fourteenth Amendment</a> holds, in relevant part, that "[n]o State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" - the so called Equal Protection clause. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed in 1868, in the wake of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, for the purpose of insuring that blacks were treated to no legal disability in this nation. There is no evidence whatsoever that those who passed this law intended its provisions to extend to homosexuality. To the contrary, homosexuality was then under legal disability throughout most of the states. To claim now that the Equal Protection clause includes homosexual marriage in its ambit is to make an utter mockery of the Constitution and our system of government. This is not a nation of laws; it is now a nation subject to the whims of activist judges who, in acts of supreme arrogance, corrupt our entire government when they impose social policy at odds with the will of the people of this nation and their elected representatives.<br /><br />
What should happen is that the nine members of the Supreme Court should examine intent of those who drafted and voted for passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. That would inevitably lead to the conclusion that homosexuality is not a "right" enshrined in the 14th Am., and that that there is no Constitutional right to homosexual marriage. The only way to change that at the federal level is through a Constitutional Amendment as set forth in <a href="http://constitutionus.com/#a5">Article V</a>. Barring that, because the Constitution does not concern itself with homosexuality or marriage, this is an issue of social policy that, per the <a href="http://constitutionus.com/#x10">Xth Amendment</a>, should be left to the states. Period. <br /><br />
But what we have on the Court today are at least four judges who live to impose their left wing social policy preferences on our nation, and Justice Kennedy, who has shown himself ready to join the four in support of homosexuality and against the rights of the religious in this nation. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephanie-mott/scotus-doma-and-prop-8-wh_b_3589975.html">Two years ago</a>, Kennedy and the other four struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and refused to hear an appeal seeking to uphold California's referendum on Section 8, defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Last year the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/07/supreme-court-gay-wedding-photography_n_5104699.html">Supreme Court let stand</a> a New Mexico decision punishing a Christian photographer targeted by the gay mafia for refusing to photorgaph a gay wedding ceremony. The handwriting is on the wall on this one. We'll see what follows after.
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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-39420942991804335312015-05-09T20:39:00.001-04:002015-05-10T00:13:31.996-04:00Missing The Salafi Forest & The War Of Ideas Through Pam Geller's Trees<br />
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<blockquote><blockquote><p><i><b>Seth Leibsohn</b></i>: I want to get to . . . the appropriateness . . . of [Pam Geller's "Draw Mohammed" contest] on Sunday even before the shooting began. . . .<br />
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<b><i>Dr. Zuhdi Jasser</i></b>: Well, I do think, the analogy I like to use is a drunk who's walking through the streets and has anger and violent tendencies. Then someone decides to go up and poke him in the eye and . . . where is the problem? The problem is in the drunk. Why is he drinking, why does he have a substance problem and why is he violent. And that's what I'm dedicated to. Now, was it smart to poke him in the eye? I guess yes. He's running fifty-six countries and a quarter of the world's population, and he's distributing in an organized fashion that toxin that I call political Islam through a draconian form of Shariah [law] that needs reform, I think it's relevant . . .<br />
<br />
Russ Douthat said it the best, in the NYT of all places, in January <a href="http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/the-blasphemy-we-need/?_r=0">when he wrote a piece</a> on the "blasphemy we need." He wrote that, if a large enough group . . . is willing to kill you for saying something, then it is something that certainly needs to be said. . . .<br />
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The greatest blasphemy in Islam is denying God, and these people aren't killing atheist conventions. . . . If you go to the Supreme Court in [Washington, D.C.], there are busts of people who have contributed to Western law. There is a bust in the Supreme Court . . . of Mohammed - at our Supreme Court. No one is having a big deal out of that. So the issue is Islamo-nationalism. The criticism of the Prophet Mohammed through a caricature is like burning the Islamist flag, and that's why they get all enraged. It's nothing about major theological offense. Yes, we can't have images of the prophet because of fear of deification of Mohammed, but it's all about theo-politics and not about, necessarily, theology. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c5soKvMTvM">Seth Leibsohn radio interview of Dr. Zuhdi Jasser</a>, 5 May 2015.</i></p></blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><p>. . . Salafism robs young Muslims of their soul, it turns Western communities against them, and it can end in civil war as Muslims attempt to implement shari'a in their host countries. A peaceful interpretation of Islam is possible, but the Salafi establishment is currently blocking moderate theological reform. The civilized world ought to recognize the immense danger that Salafi Islam poses; it must become informed, courageous and united if it is to protect both a generation of young Muslims and the rest of humanity from the disastrous consequences of this militant ideology.</p></blockquote><p>
<i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawfik_Hamid">Tawfiq Hamid</a>, Egyptian born physician, former terrorist and now author, 2008, <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/01/civilized-world-ought-to-recognize.html">Interview in the Jerusalem Post</a></i></p></blockquote><p>
Pam Geller's 'Draw Mohammed' contest does not raise a legitimate issue of freedom of speech. No one can contest that, under the First Amendment, she has a right to hold such a contest. That is a no brainer. The argument that has been raised by some on the left is that Geller's speech is likely to cause violence by those who are perpetually outraged. Anyone who knows the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence knows that such is not a legitimate ground to stop Ms. Geller's speech. What is really going on here is that our neo-Stalinist left would like to shut down any speech that they don't agree with or that in any way criticizes one of their victim's groups. Give them the finger and move on; their arguments are not worthy of anything more than ridicule.<br />
<br />
Update: Megyn Kelly, Alan Dershowitz and others agree with my assessment of Constitutional law on this issue:<br /><br />
<iframe width="475" height="290" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-tpEsY-cR6Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />
Everyone seems to be missing the far more important issue - that what is going on here is a "war of ideas" in Islam and our government has ceded that war to the enemy. Pam Geller's contest demonstrated it. Dr. Jasser explains what is actually happening -- that the Salafists' who demonstrate murderous outrage over the Draw Mohammed contest have no moral standing and their outrage is not theological in its nature, it is political. It is the murderous outrage that comes from Salafist Muslims bent on stopping any criticism of their toxic, triumphalist, and politicized interpretation of Islam and bent on preventing any reform, even as they spill blood by the tons around the world in an effort to impose a caliphate. Countering that requires engaging in the war of ideas. <br /><br />
There is little doubt that Obama has - and continues to - completely mishandle of our engagement in the Middle East. But even more harmful has been his utter retreat from any engagement in the war of ideas, to the point, one, of refusing to call Islamic terrorism by its name, and two, by excusing Islamic terrorism on the grounds of moral equivalence with the Crusades of near a millennium ago. <br />
<br />
As I wrote in 2009 and as still very much applicable today:</p>
<blockquote><p>The physical war on terror is necessary to stop the [threat] of immediate [attacks to our nation]. But it is in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16friedman.html?_r=3&hp">war of ideas</a> that the true battle lies, for if we do not stop the radicalization of Muslims, then the war on terror will never end. Ultimately, as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16friedman.html?_r=3&hp">Tom Friedman</a> recently opined, this is a battle that must be fought within the four corners of Islam itself. But that said, we have an existential motivation to insure that the "good side" wins. This is made all the more critical because the good side, if you will, is not winning. The ideology at the heart of [ISIS,] al Qaeda and other radical Islamic groups is very much still on the advance.<br /><br />
The threshold issue in the war of ideas is to identify who, as a group, constitutes “radicalized Muslims.” Islam, like Christianity, is subdivided into numerous different sects, many of which, such as <a href="http://www.islamicpluralism.org/">Sufi</a> for example, are peaceful and counsel coexistence. Individually, there are hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world, most of whom would make good citizens, good friends, good neighbors and good family members in the West. Only a portion of them become “radicalized” whether as members of al Qaeda, [ISIS,] or some of the other radical Islamic groups, such as the <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/02/fjordmans-essay-on-muslim-brotherhood.html">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, the <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/intro/islam-deobandi.htm">Taliban</a>, and <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/12/of-islamist-foxes-and-british-chickens.html">Jamat-I-Islami</a> to name but a few. Those who belong to these groups do in fact share a common thread – virtually all are adherents to the Salafi/Wahhabi school of Islam or a school, such as Deobandi, that has been heavily influenced in all relevant respects by Salafism.<br /><br />
There was a time when Salafism was confined to the back waters of Arabia. <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/11/reason-we-face-problem-of-radical-islam.html">That changed</a> when the tribe of Saud, in partnership with the tribe of Waahab, conquered Arabia in the 1930's. Within decades, the Sauds became incredibly wealthy on oil. Now, they spend billions annually exporting Salafi clerics, schools and textbooks to the four corners of the world. Consequently, Salafism is becoming the dominant form of Islam and is effecting every major school of Islam. As I wrote in a <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-you-dont-know-could-kill-you_31.html">prior post</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://citizenwarrior2.blogspot.com/2007/11/wahhabi-invasion-of-america.html">According to</a> official Saudi information, Saudi funds have been used to build and maintain over 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges, 210 Islamic Centers wholly or partly financed by Saudi Arabia, and almost 2,000 schools for educating Muslim children in non-Islamic countries in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia. The North American Islamic Trust - a Wahhabi Salafi organization, owns between <a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/SR_muslimorg.pdf">50% and 80%</a> of all mosques in North America. And Salafists are, in many cases, taking over existing Mosques throughout the world. Some very informative expamples include <a href="http://towncommons.blogspot.com/2007/03/wahhabization-of-antwerp.html">Belgium</a>, <a href="http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP62503">Somalia</a>, and <a href="http://towncommons.blogspot.com/2007/04/radical-islam-in-indonesia.html">Indonesia</a>. And indeed, the Saudi Salafi Islam now exerts significant influence on our educational system, all the way from <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/12/follow-salafi-money-to-democrats.html">grade school</a> to <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/12/saudi-bought-influence-at-our-major.html">university</a>. . . . </p></blockquote><p>
The West's premier orientalist, <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/03/bernard-lewis.html">Professor Bernard Lewis</a> - the man who coined the term "clash of civilizations" half a century ago and who predicted the rise of Islamic terrorism years prior to 9-11 - writes in his book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Islam-Holy-Unholy-Terror/dp/0679642811">The Crisis of Islam</a>" that the ideology of [Saudi Arabia's] Wahhabi / Salafi Islam is many times worse than that of the“KKK” in terms of bigotry and violence (p. 129). . . . The NYPD, in a 2007 report, “<a href="http://hoekstra.house.gov/UploadedFiles/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf">Radicalization In The West</a>” documented Salafism as the common thread and motivating force behind terrorist attacks in the West. Zhudi Jasser, a Muslim reformist, writes on the dangers of Salafism and the efforts to engage it in the war of ideas <a href="http://www.mzuhdijasser.com/3332/defeating-salafism-and-wahhabism-the-right-way">here</a>. The <a href="http://www.islamicpluralism.org/">Center For Islamic Pluralism</a>, a "a think tank that challenges the dominance of American Muslim life by militant Islamist groups," maintains a section on their website called "<a href="http://www.islamicpluralism.org/topics/47/wahhabiwatch/">Wahhabi Watch</a>." Perhaps the most cogent description of Salfism goes back a century, to the <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/02/some-western-historical-perspectives-on.html">observations of Winston Churchill</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>A large number of Bin Saud's followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relationship to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of [Europe's] religious wars.<br /><br />
The Wahhabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practice themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahhabi villages for simply appearing in the streets.<br /><br />
It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette and, as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and blood-thirsty, in their own regions the Wahhabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.</p></blockquote><p>
Salafism has remained virtually unchanged since Churchill's observations. It was only a few years ago that the Saudi courts, applying Salafi Sharia law, ordered the <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/11/more-gang-rape-fallout-in-medieval-land.html">victim</a> of a brutal gang rape to suffer 200 lashes and six months in jail for being outside of her home without the escort of a male family member. To this day, <a href="http://towncommons.blogspot.com/2007/03/harry-potter-meets-saudi-commission-on.html">hunting witches</a> and breaking spells are the top duties of the Salafi religious police and, when witches are "caught," they are <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-514433/International-fury-Saudi-Arabias-plans-behead-woman-accused-witch.html">ritually slaughtered</a>. In the Salafi culture of Saudi Arabia, it has been less than 20 years since the kingdom's senior cleric, the Grand Mufti issued a <a href="http://www.islam-watch.org/SujitDas/MuslimGenius.htm">fatwah declaring</a> "the earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment." And then there is the <a href="http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/StephenGill51020.htm">well known Salafi edict</a> that anyone who converts from Islam is to be slaughtered.<br /><br />
As I pointed out in a post <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/11/reason-we-face-problem-of-radical-islam.html">here</a>, Islam, unlike Christianity, is a religion that has never gone through a Rennisance, a Reformation or a Period of Enlightenment. And while the mechanism - itjihad - exists that could lead to such an event, the reality is that Salafists are fighting any change to their interpretations of the Koran and Sunnah with every tool at their disposal, up to and including "<a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/05/decline-of-al-qaeda-brand.html">slaughtering the takfirs</a>." Moreover, they are using the UN to push for blasphemy laws that would <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2007/11/reason-we-face-problem-of-radical-islam.html">shut down all criticism of Salafism in the Western world</a>.<br /><br />
The vitriol, bigotry, and triumphalism of Salafism are taught to students in schools and madrassas across the world – including in American Islamic schools and Salafi prison ministries. Salafi Islam teaches that its adherents can freely <a href="http://towncommons.blogspot.com/2007/04/deconstructing-radical-wahhabi-islamist.html">murder non-Muslims</a> or <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=EABF4429-41FA-4986-AB73-8BDE82BEBA61">enslave them</a> and <a href="http://www.islam-watch.org/AyeshaAhmed/London-Imam-Attempt-to-Carry-Out-Sunna.htm">rape them</a>. Moreover, Salafists hold that challenging their existing Salafi Koranic interpretations are "<a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/01/civilized-world-ought-to-recognize.html">redda (apostasy) punishable by death </a>. . ." And indeed, for specific references to these doctrines being taught in a Saudi school in Virginia, read the USCIFR report <a href="http://wolfhowling.blogspot.com/2008/06/saudis-promote-violence-hatred-in.html">here</a>.<br /><br />
Salafism is the religion of [ISIS], the religion of [al Qaeda], the religion of all the 9-11 hijackers. That said, nothing that I write here is to suggest that all or a majority of Salafists should be stigmatized as radical. But the simple reality we ignore at our peril is that it is from the wellspring of Salafism that virtually all the radicalism of the Muslim world arises.<br /><br />
In the war of ideas, one of the most important steps that Obama could take would be to publicly shine a light on Salafism, both as the feeder for radical Islam and for the barbarity of some of its dogma. That would go very far to starting the type of discussion that could actually bring some semblance of evolution and peaceful change to Salafism. Ignoring Salafism - which, according to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/dp/1400050219">ex-CIA agent Bob Baer</a> we have done ever since the 1970's when the Saudi's first began to buy influence in the American body politic - allows it to metastasize in the dark. And it is metastasizing at rapid speed today on the back of Saudi petrodollars. That is a recipe for disaster.</p></blockquote><p>
No one should be asking, as a result of Pam Geller's "Draw Mohammed" contest, whether anyone has a First Amendment right to criticize, in any way, shape or form, Saudi Arabia's Salafi Islam. They should be asking why our President is not engaging Islamists in the war of ideas and why he is ceding that ground to the Salafists. It is a mistake that our children and their progeny will be paying dearly for in the decades to come.<br /><br />
Update: Pat Condell discusses a related Mo-toon incident in the UK. It is an exceptional rant.<br /><br />
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GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-25522217228257992552015-05-09T14:23:00.000-04:002015-05-09T14:23:56.389-04:00Hangovers, They Are Not Just For HumansSad to say, but humans aren't the only species with a taste for alcohol, nor the only species to suffer hangovers in the aftermath of a bender. This is the carnage wrought in the animal kingdom the morning after a really fun party at the zoo (H/T <a href="http://www.bookwormroom.com/">Bookworm Room</a>): <br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZhgjlH96jWea25rS_oqmL9Qfs2-MYrGqVD1OSKg3BI-XROZDQ0lJ_BmowPmDDB_Txym9UJ9GefqLZxzFiVeeI1XYurNeU78QQqvCAf8bnU8pI57qFEz_Mzp4J2VB1A902S4Oe-qzByS_d/s1600/hungover1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZhgjlH96jWea25rS_oqmL9Qfs2-MYrGqVD1OSKg3BI-XROZDQ0lJ_BmowPmDDB_Txym9UJ9GefqLZxzFiVeeI1XYurNeU78QQqvCAf8bnU8pI57qFEz_Mzp4J2VB1A902S4Oe-qzByS_d/s400/hungover1.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDNh3e-8GTLZxhXcHbN4U3jWZH_FwSagXDhf2dbCIFHdByEhCOYya_ne9KI-k-ysuuzT3wiV5_3cB9root3auCatwksEWfMSdtjpmjoPIQsMeA64PLIhVAd2dmnfsK3S-W3oY7qIPHWLV/s1600/hungover3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTDNh3e-8GTLZxhXcHbN4U3jWZH_FwSagXDhf2dbCIFHdByEhCOYya_ne9KI-k-ysuuzT3wiV5_3cB9root3auCatwksEWfMSdtjpmjoPIQsMeA64PLIhVAd2dmnfsK3S-W3oY7qIPHWLV/s400/hungover3.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggZ6k8Wbp_N79VOpVrR2Rf5srX3RZCteBiHId0kFUoDg1EFtW4mi68ngr8UBP1lQouMs4ULFwAgYGvogsjBqlUADT07pTTZfKFE6Jwj1ZqmjUxYKm5II88tUp4p6Lov1WlujLsKll5qYan/s1600/hungover4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggZ6k8Wbp_N79VOpVrR2Rf5srX3RZCteBiHId0kFUoDg1EFtW4mi68ngr8UBP1lQouMs4ULFwAgYGvogsjBqlUADT07pTTZfKFE6Jwj1ZqmjUxYKm5II88tUp4p6Lov1WlujLsKll5qYan/s400/hungover4.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOu7WNEZrBbcm2BxbuE0tqqNr4KNcpVDoqNNYgmrLfYjVXZpZvBxWnUV_G7j3LEgp6q2jPjKmjzRHlkBg9t2eo60Vb8SpBRGGIbuYONB_HoRK0iJYdxubQGjAt7mXsCEhsj2wbSyqvZOtA/s1600/hungover5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOu7WNEZrBbcm2BxbuE0tqqNr4KNcpVDoqNNYgmrLfYjVXZpZvBxWnUV_G7j3LEgp6q2jPjKmjzRHlkBg9t2eo60Vb8SpBRGGIbuYONB_HoRK0iJYdxubQGjAt7mXsCEhsj2wbSyqvZOtA/s400/hungover5.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_5IffckjcBPbDFB_CQto3RTgdmHL4Dew53qsSfJV9KLpRegcDth1EVqTHQDL3tJDZKfTs9dB16xGE8cr2hTCUPdbwtLZvLgzb5H4Xvo-36vgwl6my3mmBcX1lVjIPVfuE0tUL1Yi_qnF/s1600/hungover6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS_5IffckjcBPbDFB_CQto3RTgdmHL4Dew53qsSfJV9KLpRegcDth1EVqTHQDL3tJDZKfTs9dB16xGE8cr2hTCUPdbwtLZvLgzb5H4Xvo-36vgwl6my3mmBcX1lVjIPVfuE0tUL1Yi_qnF/s400/hungover6.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPjZqlu0WGeYDHG1u15LTAT08xOW3Qv5imNa9B7rc0kpa_bcPEj6MXXHmg8boQYaAd97J0juJk8EKzIKkA5AfPSsV1rM-EQkDshtvIf83N9_KyQGhWPaEK5ZLf2KkzHWATicJbZWJnVaMg/s1600/hungover9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPjZqlu0WGeYDHG1u15LTAT08xOW3Qv5imNa9B7rc0kpa_bcPEj6MXXHmg8boQYaAd97J0juJk8EKzIKkA5AfPSsV1rM-EQkDshtvIf83N9_KyQGhWPaEK5ZLf2KkzHWATicJbZWJnVaMg/s400/hungover9.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RnplU0pXoTqAXjd13iJLjHjWNY4qAGr48EIK5JVGdeDUeXlGaEa1SHT5lxsvbzrmh3jYZwSv9hxJmHNsfk_rlcORCcpxLKGivs1ANQRrweVko5vHCwf1WJ0OEju0ZW1Ql4nJC6Ol723g/s1600/hungover11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RnplU0pXoTqAXjd13iJLjHjWNY4qAGr48EIK5JVGdeDUeXlGaEa1SHT5lxsvbzrmh3jYZwSv9hxJmHNsfk_rlcORCcpxLKGivs1ANQRrweVko5vHCwf1WJ0OEju0ZW1Ql4nJC6Ol723g/s400/hungover11.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_o48Pt3sUteRjY-NNH1PbSiKv4yIO6fzJ_bpGcPHr5v_WIRtAZep6IyWeT_vTULst8vVpDTQM0zgiMoOeOW9FTfkpQle2gtKT65lZqcpYO2OkRGBYWRvkdauqJC2vIU_JyET3Qw0TtNGk/s1600/hungover12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_o48Pt3sUteRjY-NNH1PbSiKv4yIO6fzJ_bpGcPHr5v_WIRtAZep6IyWeT_vTULst8vVpDTQM0zgiMoOeOW9FTfkpQle2gtKT65lZqcpYO2OkRGBYWRvkdauqJC2vIU_JyET3Qw0TtNGk/s400/hungover12.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2a5WOJrLsdrgzxW9fdGrK6jOINP8P7ov8IFKE2YMgwQ9rSo309T4Kc9yPuG3G-y8ipE3WyYm3Tb0X14VMt6pltfueni4zhxAYJLpOiIU1TPZJ8GvhsOluE-bUZC9YDMAZfPQbrLT8jpo4/s1600/hungover13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2a5WOJrLsdrgzxW9fdGrK6jOINP8P7ov8IFKE2YMgwQ9rSo309T4Kc9yPuG3G-y8ipE3WyYm3Tb0X14VMt6pltfueni4zhxAYJLpOiIU1TPZJ8GvhsOluE-bUZC9YDMAZfPQbrLT8jpo4/s400/hungover13.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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</b:if><br /><br />GWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05814327154035433443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5492310882851199969.post-90775062587435013162015-05-09T14:05:00.000-04:002015-05-09T14:05:21.582-04:00The Disaster That Is The Obama Recovery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0z1njvFJ2enFRkSBvlslAYejCGcT1lvEj2Ff7CKKR4YcmpYa_T_AtCqEaIX_seOYafEss1aJWGtLhxyqwY2DvuZWwSoaJxrHcR4IvGLxubIr5Qm-1NCAeViwCN-A7rLIaZuSwDBlEYA-R/s1600/econ+movement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0z1njvFJ2enFRkSBvlslAYejCGcT1lvEj2Ff7CKKR4YcmpYa_T_AtCqEaIX_seOYafEss1aJWGtLhxyqwY2DvuZWwSoaJxrHcR4IvGLxubIr5Qm-1NCAeViwCN-A7rLIaZuSwDBlEYA-R/s400/econ+movement.jpg" /></a></div><p><br /><br />
This from the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-deal-makers-economy-1431040820">WSJ</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The U.S. economy reported a 1.9% drop in productivity in the first quarter of the year, underscoring the trend of historically slow productivity growth in the current recovery. The slowdown isn’t entirely understood, but one certain cause is slower than usual business investment. Money that could go to wealth-creating innovations is going instead to financial deal-making.<br /><br />
Companies have announced more than $1.3 trillion of mergers and acquisitions world-wide so far this year, a surge of 23% from the same period last year and the most since the financial crisis. It’s not irrational exuberance that’s driving many of today’s deals—just the opposite. With fewer opportunities for growth but plenty of credit available to fund deals, mergers are often the most sensible way for a company to expand. . . .<br /><br />
In the U.S., the combination of loose monetary policy and restrictive government has created one of the great ironies of the Obama era. The labor-force participation rate of 62.7% persists at a 1978 level, and Americans who have jobs see little wage growth. But it’s a boom time for the Wall Streeters Mr. Obama vilifies, especially the attorneys and financiers who arrange corporate mergers.<br /><br />
Small companies are also struggling to find new customers and markets. A recent survey from the National Federation of Independent Business shows that the availability of credit is not the problem; business owners aren’t borrowing because they don’t know what to do with the money. Merely 5% of business owners reported that all their credit needs weren’t met. NFIB says that interest “rates are low, but prospects for putting borrowed money profitably to work have not improved enough to induce owners to step up their borrowing and spending.”<br /><br />
It is the story of this era. The Kauffman Foundation, which tracks new businesses, says its data show 2013 was “the second consecutive year to show an entrepreneurial activity decline in the United States.” Being an entrepreneur always takes guts. It takes special courage during an Administration that has twice set the annual record by issuing more than 81,000 pages of regulations.<br /><br />
But you wouldn’t know the challenges of the overall economy by observing the financial economy. The boom in corporate mergers has investment banks reporting surging advisory revenue. Dealogic reports that, world-wide, markets posted the best first quarter ever for equity capital deals, with initial public offerings, secondary stock sales and convertible bond offerings up 27% from the same period last year. Corporate debt issuance remains robust.<br /><br />
What are companies doing with all the money they raise? Not necessarily funding future prosperity. A recent note from Strategas Research Partners points out that much of the money flowing into companies in recent years was directed to “financial, rather than economic, risk-taking.” Strategas says that as of the end of last year the dollar volume of stock buybacks had soared 287% since the post-crisis low and the value of mergers and acquisitions was up 179%.<br /><br />
Senator Elizabeth Warren and others on the left want to blame all this on the companies. But what she doesn’t understand is that this is a perfectly rational market response to the sheer weight of the Obama regulatory apparatus that punishes innovation and risk-taking. The progressive urge is to command businesses to make more investments, but if there’s an opportunity, no one needs to be commanded to exploit it. Washington simply needs to allow it.<br /><br />
Capital expenditures support business expansion. In the U.S. they shrank in the first quarter by 3.4%, according to the Commerce Department’s measure of nonresidential private fixed investment. Such investment is needed not only to create new productive capacity, but to replace assets that are worn-out and obsolete. A separate Commerce measure, tracking net investment—meaning new investment minus the capital assets that are consumed—shows that even in an era of easy money, American businesses aren’t eager to spend on expansion.<br /><br />
Commerce has data through 2013 for this statistic. And in constant dollars, over the first five years of the Obama Administration net private nonresidential fixed investment was the lowest since the mid-1990s when the economy was much smaller. Even near-zero interest rates haven’t been able to offset ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, new EPA emissions rules, the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and myriad other threats from Washington.<br /><br />
This White House has offered an abundance of taxpayer-funded stimulus plans. But the only true and lasting economic stimulus is one that gives people a reason to invest their own money. That will require a sharp reduction in the regulatory and tax burden that continues to inhibit business activity. Workers far from Wall Street desperately need relief.</p></blockquote><p>
And with yet more bad news on the Obama economy, this from <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-08/americans-not-labor-force-rise-record-93194000">Zero Hedge</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>In what was an "unambiguously" unpleasant April jobs payrolls report, with a March revision dragging that month's job gain to the lowest level since June of 2012, the fact that the number of Americans not in the labor force rose once again, this time to 93,194K from 93,175K, with the result being a participation rate of 69.45 or just above the lowest percentage since 1977, will merely catalyze even more upside to the so called "market" which continues to reflect nothing but central bank liquidity, and thus - the accelerating deterioration of the broader economy. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
If anyone from the left quotes the bullshit unemployment rate to you of 5.4% as a sign that Obama is providing good stewardship of the economy, feel free to beat them bloody, since they are either partisans lying to you or idiots lying to themselves. Either way, they are in need of an epiphany.<br /><br />
Yet another aspect of the Obama economy <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/08/most-net-job-gains-went-to-immigrants-since-recession/">that bears mention</a> is that, while we have hemorrhaged good paying middle class jobs under the Obama economy, we have created a lot of low wage positions. Thus, it is not surprising to find that virtually all job gains since the 2007 Recession have gone to immigrants.</p>
<blockquote><p>Since the beginning of the recession in December of 2007 — said to have ended in June 2009 — the foreign-born population has seen a much greater net employment growth than native-born Americans.<br /><br />
In December 2007 the number of foreign-born workers was 22,810,000. By April 2015, the number had increased to 24,819,000 or a net job growth of more than 2 million.<br /><br />
For native-born workers that number in December 2007 was 123,524,000 by April of this year the number of employed native-born Americans was 123,769,000 or a net job growth of 245,000. . . .</p></blockquote><p>
Governments cannot create prosperity. The long history of failed socialist and crony capitalist experiments of the 20th and 21st century are proof positive. What governments can do is create the conditions for prosperity with the minimal necessary laws and regulations. Or they, like Obama and the left are doing now, can strangle economies with heavy regulation and punishing taxes. <br /><br />
Why well meaning people on the left cannot grasp these concepts is beyond me? The closer one comes to free market capitalism, the more wealth is created and the better people fare at all economic levels. The closer one moves towards socialism or crony capitalism, the more regulations and punishing taxes one imposes, the more the economy suffers. There is a reason that the Obama years have been an economic disaster for all but the wealthiest Americans. Talk of economic redistribution sounds wonderful, but in Obamaland, the lower one is on the economic scale, the more one suffers under his administration. Indeed, the only thing that has kept this nation afloat for the past several years is the Fed's near zero interest rates and quantitative easing - i.e., spinning the printing presses at high speed. And the only people that is good for are those in the top few percent of economic wealth who are able to take advantage. We are seeing huge stock market bubbles form here and in Europe. Yes, there is an income gap and the wealthy are becoming wealthier while the middle class has suffered actual declines in economic well being, not to mention record or near record jobless levels. Blame for that rests squarely with Obama and the left.
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