Friday, February 28, 2014

Big Gay Blog Post, or The Jan Brewer Bashing

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Labeled the "Anti-gay bill" by leftist groups and the homosexual agenda, Arizona's legislative attempt to protect businesses owned by religious owners (other than Muslim) that are determined not to provide services that go against their faith, such as a gay depiction on a wedding cake, was vetoed by Governor Jan Brewer.  Her decision came after a massive bullying by the media, the political establishment, and dominant left-wing cultural personalities.  In other words, the liberal left, and homosexual lobby, are using the force of everything at their disposal to take away religious freedom, while establishing their own religion of progressivism as the official dogma of the United States.

Nothing new, I know, but this one ranks among the most glaring examples of recent memory.

The pressure, and the threat of personal destruction by democrats, media, and the liberal entertainment circuit, was enough for Jan Brewer, the politician, to go against her legislature, the conservative base of the Republican Party, and likely her own gut preference.  A veto was the only choice.  She could see the noose being swung over the branch by the leftist establishment, and she could see the snarls on the face of the moderate republicans demanding that she go along to get along.

Principles, religious, or otherwise, be damned.

If Governor Brewer decided to not veto the bill, the liberal left would love it.  They would scream, accuse, and use it as just another example of how the GOP is loaded with a bunch of racists.  Then, it would be challenged, go to court, and the next liberal judge would declare the law unconstitutional.

Liberals don't allow laws they disagree with to remain in place for long, regardless of the percentage of legislators, or the percentage of voters, that support it.  They don't care about history, religious freedoms, or the constitution.  If they don't like it, it's going down, either by bullying the politicians or voters involved, or by striking it down later with one of their comrades in a black robe.

The liberal left is interested in forcing, through the force of law, and the threat of whatever they can throw at you, their version of morality.  What is important to them is not moral standards, or religious freedom, but how they define moral standards, and that religion shuts the hell up or is also forced by law to conform to their twisted version of moral standards.  Don't like it?  Dare to stand against them?  Prepare to be bullied into submission like Governor Jan Brewer was.  She was bullied even by the NFL, who told her they'd take the Super Bowl away if she dared buck the liberal system.

I could use the ol' standby, "but you know, if it was conservatives bullying a democrat governor. . . "

Wrong answer.  Then, it would have been wrong to pressure the politician like that.  Political Bullying is wrong, or right, depending on the politicians, and the bullies.  Since the left is convinced theirs is the right thing, there are no rules.  Bullying is acceptable.  Lying is acceptable.  Stomping all over the constitution, denying religious freedoms, and using any means necessary to silence and stop the opposition is fine.  But, if the table was flipped, then the republicans involved would be characterized the same way they attacked George W. Bush.  We'd hear cries of discrimination, hate, bigot, or worse.
What the leftists wants is all that matters, no matter how it is obtained.

The leftists do not accept laws they don't agree with.  Obama has proven he won't enforce laws he doesn't agree with, and then will put into practice laws he thinks should be on the books, without the benefit of Congress.  The law is whatever benefits the liberal left the most.

What about the legal angle?  What about a business's right to refuse service to anyone for any reason?  Do you remember the stories of Christians escorted by security out of malls for daring to talk about their faith, or wearing a religious shirt in a business, and so their business was refused by the leftist business owner?  That was fine.  The business owner, we were told, has a right to run his business anyway he wants.  If he doesn't want the damn Christians in there, he has a right to have them escorted to the curb - but if homosexuals want to force a Christian business owner to bake a gay cake, or take gay wedding pictures, tough.  Do it, or face the full consequences of the law by the liberal left establishment.  Conform, or be shut down, fined, and possibly jailed.

As for that bill in Arizona, was it really an "anti-gay" bill, or was it a law designed to protect religious freedom from militant homosexualism and frivolous lawsuits?  By not protecting the religious freedoms of these folks, gay activists are going to target these businesses, watching for just the right moment, and jump all over them.

We can argue about the morality of homosexuality all we want, but it doesn't get to the heart of the issue regarding the gay agenda in America.  According to one side, the activity is a sin, and though they have no interest in legislating morality, they don't want to be forced to accept it as a natural part of society, either.

The premise set by the homosexual agenda is that gay marriage, and any other issue directly related to the gay movement, fall into the category of civil rights.  This is a necessary label, if the gay agenda is going to have a chance to pull off the normalization of their sexual lifestyle.  Without convincing everyone that gays are born that way, can't help it, and that to dare to oppose their agenda is discrimination in the same vain as was forcing blacks to sit in the back of the bus, or separate drinking fountains depending on the color of your skin, the gay lifestyle becomes nothing more than a bad decision, a sexual perversion, and just another agenda trying to line its own pockets or force its way into the American mosaic - whether you like it, or not.  Without the "gay plight" being labeled as a civil rights issue, the movement has no legs.

Since gay marriage was the ignition point, that means that first homosexuals needed to convince everyone that they are a monogamous group, only interested in a meaningful relationship with a single spouse, and raising their family without the "hateful discrimination" from a bunch of ignorant, bigoted Bible-thumpers.  Since the Christian community calls homosexuality a "sin," the gay agenda must convince everyone that either it is not a sin, that it doesn't matter if it is a sin, that the group of people making the accusations lack credibility, or a combination thereof.  In other words, the people of America must be convinced they have been fed false information from an untrustworthy source, and then their hearts and minds must be changed to accept the new reality.

Break it down anyway you want, in the end it is still about convincing the public that God is wrong, God is unfair, and that if God is not supposed to be wrong and unfair then He must not exist in the first place.

The drive to normalize homosexuality, then, is not really about the gay lifestyle as much as it is about destroying all opposition, and ultimately, eliminating God.

Liberalism as defined by the current leftist ideology plays by old rules established by ancient purveyors of collectivism and statism.  Language is being altered to reflect something different than originally intended.  Language being is used to mask truth, ridicule and silence opposition, and convey a message of good intentions and caring aims.  In the end, the left refuses to define their terms truthfully, and instead uses confusion and deception to achieve their goals.

After the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in order to convince the skeptics in New York to ratify the new constitution, 85 essays were written to the New Yorkers in an attempt to convince them that a larger government is necessary, but that through the chains of the constitution, it would be restrained to only the limited authorities granted to it.  In five of those essays, also known as the Federalist Papers, James Madison follows a reference to this country being a republic by writing, "a republic, by which I mean. . . "  Why did James Madison, the father of the Constitution, feel he needed to explain what a republic is?

The statists of that time were monkeying with the language, just as the left is doing, now.  The attack was designed to redefine what a republic is, just as today the gay agenda is trying to redefine what marriage is.  The statists were saying that a republic and a democracy are the same thing.  That there is no difference.  In reality, there is a huge difference, and democracies are actually unstable, and act as a transitional government, most often towards an oligarchy where the powerful few rule over the many.

That is what is happening now.  Nothing new.  And what is really interesting about it is that the gays are actually just tools.  They are being used by the left.  Leftism ultimately always becomes totalitarian systems, where the government is the ultimate object of allegiance, and anyone not fully productive for the sake of supporting that system, are put to death - as the gays were in the Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, and so forth.

Of course, the gay bar refusing to serve anyone that supports Arizona's bill isn't discriminatory at all.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Pressure mounts on Arizona governor to veto bill dubbed anti-gay - Yahoo News

Issue Analysis: Arizona bill does not give businesses license to discriminate against gays - Christian Post

Russian Military Enters Ukraine

by JASmius

Well, THAT didn't take long, now did it?



Some impromptu reactions to the interruption of The One's Netflix Friday:

***Well that's it, Putin's in for it now, because Barack Hussein Obama (mmm-mmm-mmm) is - brace yourselves - DEEPLY CONCERNED!  OH, MY GOD!

***Yes, there will be costs for this Russian invasion of Ukraine.  I'm quite sure Putin has already sent O the bill.

***Sure, WE think Russia invading Ukraine is "deeply destabilizing," and maybe the EUnuchs and some Ukrainians do as well, but quite obviously Putin disagrees.  Or maybe he thought Ukraine was already unstable, largely because he did the destabilizing, and decided to do more about it than just pump the air full of useless words.  Of course, he wouldn't have been in a position to play with Ukraine like a cat batting around a dead mouse if King Hussein hadn't destabilized the whole planet by "transforming" the United States into the new PeeWee Herman of geopolitics.

***The "Ukrainian people" quite clearly cannot "decide matters" for themselves, because Vlad Putin won't let them, bleepheels.

***Vlad has just told you what he thinks about his commitment to respect the independence, sovereignty, and borders of Ukraine, aaaaaand international law, Barry.

BTW, don't you love Vitaly Churkin issuing dire warnings to O against "interfering" in Russian "internal affairs"?  Like he would.

I can't wait to see his presser after Putin invades Alaska.

The Left Wing War On Women, Children, Blacks & Native Americans

by JASmius

The left wing extremists have been hurting the most vulnerable among us and Bill says its time to call them out on it.




Who on the Right hasn't been calling leftwing extremists out on hurting the most vulnerable among us?  For decades, in some cases?  And, righteous and courageous as it's been, what practical good has it done?

Call that the "reality check" to Bill's over-optimism about the electoral possibilities about a public recognition of leftwing extremist psychological projection.

ATF Agents Lost Track Of Dozens Of Their Own Guns

by JASmius

Well, you know how it is; you set down your M16 to grab a handful of "fire" sauce packets to squirt on your XXL steak stack burrito at Taco Bell, then remember that you forgot to get your large Mountain Dew Baja blast soda, then grab a handful of napkins, only to have it dawn on you that you left your pants in the patrol vehicle, which is a problem since your patrol vehicle keys are still in the front pocket along with your cell phone and wallet.  So you try to talk to the store manager, which would be a lot easier to do if you weren't standing their in your "ATF" skivvies, to say nothing of still being in possession of your M - HOLY CRAP, WHAT HAPPENED TO MY AUTOMATIC WEAPON?

Oh, well, at least it found a good home south of the border.

Cam Edwards talks to Raquel Rutledge, who co-wrote this article for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel




BTW, if you order a cheese & potato burrito at a Mexican Taco Bell and get served a burrito supreme by mistake, take my advice, don't bring it up to the manager.  He might just be sporting "imported" "ATF" boxers.  Among other things.

GOP Senators: Democrats Playing Politics With Veterans' Benefits

by JASmius

....and?  Isn't there supposed to be a punchline in here somewhere?:

Senate Republicans on Thursday attacked Democrats for playing politics with a $21 billion bill that would have expanded benefits for veterans — leading them to block an effort by Majority Leader Harry Reid to move the legislation to a full floor vote.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky charged that the legislation "was not considered in committee, greatly expands spending without any realistic offset, and would vastly overwhelm the Veterans Administration healthcare system.

"It’s shameful that Senate Democrats would seek to score political points by rushing to the floor a bill the committee did not consider, and could have otherwise been handled in a bipartisan manner through regular order.

"Unfortunately, it’s become standard practice around here for the majority to pursue partisan legislation in a take-it-or-leave-it manner, so it’s unsurprising that nobody other than the majority leader and the committee chairman has been allowed the opportunity to amend this bill."
I repeat: And?  Oh, don't misunderstand me, I concur with what McConnell is saying.  But Democrats have been doing this sort of thing for what?  Eighty years?  It isn't exactly novel or original; a batbleep spending orgy sold as "Look how much we love American veterans!" rammed to the floor regardless of the rules with any and all spluttering Republican objections sold as "Look how much Pachyderms hate American veterans!"  Kinda redefines the term "vintage".  Drastically.  Downward.

Then again, I've never been all that partial to the term "playing politics".  It's like fish complaining about rain.  Governing IS politics, which IS governing.  Everything politicians do, down to and including loaf-pinching, is politics.  Denying Reid cloture on this VA appropriation could, and will, be dismissed as the GOP "playing politics with veterans' benefits".  It's a meaningless phrase.

How about something like this instead?  "Harry Reid is a dick to rules.  And austerity.  And veterans.  And us.  So we're castrating him with this filibuster.  Nuke this, Pencilneck."

Hey, if you're gonna "play politics" before Dirty Harry can, why not at least make it fun?

Libertarians, Conservatives & Classical Liberals Unite!

by JASmius

It'll make it much easier for the Regime to round us up and send us to "the camps".

But just in case you wanted some cheerleading, here you go:

Everyone who believes in limited government needs to unite. We need to educate our friends and families about the perils of big government. We need to show them why small, limited government works better for all of us.




Yeah, it sounds good.  But we all know that the Right is incapable of uniting because we're all way too prone to sniff each other's philosophical asses like a pack of Mr. Peabodys to flush out the "impure".  And because some of us get ideology confused with tactics.  And because libertarians hate conservatives more than they do liberals.

Even if such a uniting was feasible, it would be coming at least a decade too late to save the Old Republic.  But at least we'd be going out in a blaze of glory.

Or at least as much of one as the guards would permit inside the cattlecars.

The Unmarked, Matte-Gray Crown Victoria

by JASmius

Bill Whittle noticed something annoying on a recent commute: a Crown Victoria without license plates. Why are the authorities becoming more militarized and treating Americans like the enemy?




Because to dictators, their subjects ARE the enemy.  Or was that a rhetorical question?

Red Barry's Half-Brother to Newsmax: Obama Acted "Too Black" When We Met

by JASmius

Behold Mark Obama Ndesandjo, the white sheep of the family:

President Barack Obama places "politics before family," his Kenya-born half-brother Mark Obama Ndesandjo said in an exclusive Newsmax interview.

And when the two men first met, the man who went on to be president appeared to be acting "too black" for his African-raised sibling.

"When we met in '88 he was very much influenced by African nationalists and also at the same time had strong opinions about the roles of independence," Ndesandjo said on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

Ndesandjo, whose book "Cultures: My Odyssey of Self-Discovery" explores the complicated relationship between the brothers, said the first time he met Barack, "it was a very powerful meeting." We had very different views about a couple of things... there was a cultural clash because I mentioned in my book that I felt that he thought that I was too white and I felt he was too black.

"He had been raised in white America and I think he was looking for his African roots as a cultural journey.

"I, on the other hand, had been brought up in Africa — in Kenya — and I had identified with my mother and her western culture. I wanted to explore my western roots.

"I felt at that point, we had different points of view. I tried to talk, for example, about Chopin and Beethoven because I play classical piano and Barack rolled his eyes.

"He had his own goals and I had my own goals."
The only difference between the two half-brothers appears to be that Ndesandjo had their father around growing up and The One didn't.  Which, given that their father was, according to the former, an abusive prick, explains their widely divergent worldviews.  O was fed an idealized, fictional image of his absent father steeped in Marxist ideology, while Ndesandjo got the real thing and consequently associated the domestic abuse with those views and, therefore, didn't swig down the leftist poison.

It sure looks more and more like Barack Obama would have been better off, and become a better man, being raised by wolves.  Yeah, they hunt and kill and otherwise victimize, but at least they don't know how to lie about it.



Thursday, February 27, 2014

Constitution Class Temecula - Preamble

Constitution Class Handout
February 27, 2014
Instructor: Douglas V. Gibbs
www.politicalpistachio.com
www.douglasvgibbs.com
www.constitutionassociation.com

Faith Armory
41669 Winchester Rd.
Temecula, CA

6:30 pm


07

·   Introduction to the Constitution

·   Patriotism
·   The Rule of Law
·   Preamble


Are Nine Dead Bankers A Sign Of Pending Economic Collapse?

by JASmius

....or is the Illuminati just not what it used to be?

Prominent bankers are dying in droves. Here's the tip-off that this is a very big story: The Obamedia is not covering it. There are nine dead bankers (and counting), and the story isn't even mentioned in the national news. That itself is a major news story.




You know my recurring crack about the Obama Regime "disappearing" people who cross The One?  Or even just refusing to bow down on cue?  Or perhaps....failing to keep quiet?  It wasn't really all that tongue-in-cheek.

Put this in context with, say, the FCC "media study" and the all-out lib gun-confiscation jihad, just to name a couple of parallel crackdown trends, and you could almost believe that O is moving toward his endgame even sooner than paranoid loons like me thought possible.

Conservatives: Governor Brewer "Blackmailed" Into Foolish Veto

by JASmius

What, you mean she isn't a RINO herself?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer caved into pressure and "blackmail" from moderate GOP leaders, large corporations, the NFL and gay rights activists when she vetoed a controversial bill allowing business owners the right to refuse service to same-sex couples on the grounds of their religious conviction, critics of the move told Breitbart.
"This really was a media and partisan witch hunt," Professor Gerald Bradley of the University of Notre Dame School of Law told Breitbart. "Brewer caved to nothing less than high-tech blackmail: 'If you sign this bill, we will make you [Arizona] pay."

Senator Al Melvin, a Republican who is running for governor in Arizona and voted for the bill, said he was disappointed by the veto.

"I am sorry to hear that Governor Brewer has vetoed this bill. I'm sure it was a difficult choice for her, but it is a sad day when protecting liberty is considered controversial," Melvin said.

First things first: I whiffed on this call.  Not that it matters that much, since all Governor Brewer did is save Eric "The Red" Holder the trouble of suing Arizona again to block and squash the religious liberty bill.

Was she blackmailed into this veto?  Well, the NFL threatening to pull Super Bowl XLIX out of Phoenix was a new wrinkle, although with all the Michael Sam hoopla, that's probably not all that surprising.  That illustrates the mercenary nature of "big business," just as it illustrates the appallingly enormous power of the Lavender Lobby.  It's akin to the political clout the Ku Klux Klan had in the south after the Civil War (appropo since homosexual extremists are so fond of Civil War references).  Only these days it's Christian evangelicals figuratively (and eventually literally) dangling from tree branches.

As to "moderate Republicans," there were three Arizona state senators who voted for the religious liberties bill who then buckled to all that buggering pressure and urged a Brewer veto of it.  And, of course, John McCain and Jeff Flake did as well.  Certainly that speaks ill of them, but what I find baffling is why the Governor herself isn't being ripped from rectum to belly button by these same "RINO" hunters.  All the "moderate Republicans," business leaders, etc. could do is urge a veto; Jan Brewer actually had the power to make that decision.  The responsibility rested on her slender shoulders, and she chose....poorly.  Yet her sellout of evangelicals is still somehow the fault of those who successfully bulldozed her into carrying out their wishes?  Would, say, Chris Christie get such a generous benefit of the doubt?  Why does Governor Brewer get cut such a big break?

Judge Napolitano: SCOTUS Expands Police Authority To Search Your Home

by JASmius

The police are finding ways around warrants allowing them to search your home. How do we stop this abusive over reach? One solution that is working is the same solution Darla Dawald has shared countless times: The precinct strategy.




50,000 Americans Demand End To Obama's Police State

by JASmius

Rather akin to the condemned man's last words.  But at least they had their say.  Because if ever virtue had to be its own reward, it's here.



Lois Lerner Will Testify....If Given Pre-Emptive Immunity

by JASmius

It's almost as if the Regime is rubbing Trey Gowdy's nose in the House GOP's utter paucity of leverage on any Obama scandal.  Lerner doesn't get immunity first, she won't testify; if they give her immunity, she has no reason to tell them the truth, since Eric "The Red" Holder will never turn Lerner into the Donk Scooter Libby.

Just another illustration of how hopeless it is to use legal means to try and coerce a lawless administration.



Sarah Palin Gets Reality TV Show

by JASmius

Well, of course she does:

The former Alaska governor's new program, "Amazing America With Sarah Palin," is scheduled to premiere at 8 p.m. EDT on April 3 on the Sportsman Channel, Politico reports.

In a promotional video, Palin is seen in silhouette in front of an American flag as quotes about her newsmaking ability, charm and complexity appear on the screen.

She then appears, saying, "America: Prepare to be amazed."




I'd be amazed if she did what patriotic duty requires her to do and challenge Alaska Donk Senator Mark Begich in November.  That's actually an accomplishable goal where she could do some genuine good.  What I fear, and dread, is that she's going to do a cannonball right smack into the middle of the 2016 GOP presidential primaries and screw things up for Scott Walker, either splintering the Tea Party vote and handing the nomination to Chris Christie or equivalent, leading to TPers staying home and forfeiting the White House to the Dems (again), or somehow capturing the nomination herself and creating another Goldwater-magnitude disaster.

Or maybe she'll just continue doing these light-weight "reality" shows and sitting on the sidelines throwing spitballs at Republicans who actually have the governing responsibilities she abandoned almost five years ago.

I hope Amazing America gets Super Bowl XLVIII ratings, for all our sakes.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Hard Starboard Radio: Failure, Success & "Flexibility"



For Obama’s supporters, what matters is not what he does, but what he says and represents; The difficulty of beating an opponent who, tactically speaking, doesn’t believe in much of anything; And Obama's new budget bids farewell to fiscal discipline he never knew, and reflects his lust for national decline.

"Goodbye, farewell & amen" to the weekday format at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.  Until further notice, anyway.

Sebelius Denies 7 Million Was ObamaCare's Target

by JASmius

Right down the ol' totalitarian memory hole:

[Commissar] of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said Tuesday that the administration never had a 7 million enrollment target for Obamacare, backtracking on comments she made last year volunteering that figure.

"First of all, seven million was not the administration. That was a CBO, Congressional Budget Office prediction when the bill was first signed," Sebelius said in an interview with HuffPost Live.

"I'm not quite sure where they even got their numbers. Their numbers are all over the board, and the vice president has looked and said it may be closer to 5 to 6."
That's what Cruella insists now.  That is not, however, what she was bragging last year:

The comments appear to contradict what she told NBC News the day before the launch of the troubled healthcare site last fall when she said that "success," in her opinion, would be having 7 million Americans enrolled in the Obamacare exchanges by the end of March.

"I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014," Sebelius told NBC's Nancy Snyderman on September 30th.



Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


Last June Sebelius also volunteered the figure, telling reporters, "We're hopeful that 7 million is a realistic target."
Heaven forfend that the Regime just admits that they've fallen way short of the seven million enrollee figure they assured us would be reached by now.  As forgiving as the American people are, and as many Affirmative Action mulligans as they're willing to give to O, I wouldn't think it'd be any big deal, and could add some impetus to their appeals for patience.

Instead, their latest claim that 4 million people have now signed up for ObamaCare just looks like another gross exaggeration that nobody has any reason to believe and everybody has reason to believe will be quietly "revised" downward sometime next month.  Either that or it'll be part of the next unconstitutional Executive deferral decree.

One could almost forget what honesty in public servants is like.  But one would have to first remember what public servants are like, as opposed to the Obamunist overseers under which we languish in captivity.  And a refresher is not in the offing.

Florida Governor Rick Scott: Obama Raiding Medicare

by JASmius

Yep:

Citing proposed cuts in Medicare Advantage plans, Florida Governor Rick Scott says the Obama administration is raiding Medicare to pay for ObamaCare.

Scott was in Washington over the weekend for a National Governors Association meeting and met with President Barack Obama. In a press release Monday, Scott said he had asked Obama "to fix Obamacare immediately."
Uh-oh.  Does anybody else notice what's wrong with Governor Scott's admonition?  He should be directing that entreaty to Congress, which actually has the constitutional and legal authority to "fix" ObamaCare.  He should then be demanding that Congress repeal ObamaCare, not "fix" it, and replace it with free market health care reforms.

Or, he and his gubernatorial counterparts could simply announce that since ObamaCare is flagrantly and laughably unconstitutional, they are, under the terms of Article VI, Clause II, proceeding with nullification of the Unaffordable Care-Less Act in their states.  But I'm not holding my breath on this one.

Appearing Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Your World With Neil Cavuto," the Republican governor said he's seen 300,000 Floridians lose health plans they were promised they could keep, and now senior citizens, a significant part of the state's population, are telling him they can't find a doctor who accepts Medicare.

"It's totally different from what our citizens were promised," Scott said.
What ever happened to "caveat emptor," Governor?  Anybody can promise anything, but the consumer has a responsibility to be vigilant and discerning.  After all, didn't Red Barry carry Florida both times?  What's that old adage?  "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me".

Part of me wishes ObamaCare could be repealed for Americans who never voted for Barack Obama, and left in place for those who did.  Now there's a two-tiered health care system I could support.



Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Hard Starboard Radio: America, Defenseless



How about a little old-fashioned privacy for sexuality of all stripes?  And a live-and-let-live attitude from homosexuals for a change?; Are ObamaCare horror stories just propaganda from right-wing papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post?; And Democrats oppose defense spending because they don't want America to be defended.

Surviving disaster at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.  Skype permitting.

FCC Whistleblower: News Bias Study "Suspended, Not Canceled"

by JASmius

C'mon, didn't you kind of suspect as much?

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai, who blew the whistle on the federal agency’s plan to study purported bias in the news, says the survey has been "suspended," not canceled as the FCC has said.

The Federal Communications Commission declared last week that it had shelved a controversial survey on how newsrooms cover various news stories, which was derided by critics as a threat to the First Amendment right of press freedom.

But in explaining the decision, FCC spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said that "the pilot will not be undertaken until a new study design is final," suggesting the program could be brought back at a later date.

"It's suspended, and the way I like to think about it is [how] you would think about a baseball game being suspended," Pai told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. "It’s not being canceled, it could come back," he said Monday.
Of course, the Regime will bring it back.  Just more "under the radar" than they apparently believed they had to.  The very existence of the "study" itself guarantees that they won't give up on the idea of formalizing the partisan relationship between the Democrat Party and the Obamedia.  One way or another, every network, station, newspaper, magazine, etc. will become MSNBCCCP - or else.



Monday, February 24, 2014

Ted Nugent: "History Will Show That I'm Right"

by JASmius

....except for, you know, calling Hillary Clinton a "worthless bitch" and a "toxic cunt".

CNN's Erin Burnett talk to Rocker Ted Nugent about his controversial comments and Republican party.




Now I will admit that I don't think Barack Obama deserves the respect ordinarily accorded the office in which he squats, because, as Erin Burnett clearly does not understand, there is a distinction between the office and the officeholder.  Yes, I do get impatient with all the very-very and to-to, phony "civility" artifice that is demanded of us vis-a-vie the "mongrel in the White House" when left-wingnuts spent the preceding decade publicly indulging in assassination fantasies about President Bush, about which "animals" like Erin Burnett were conspicuously silent.  If Dems want civility, let them practice it themselves.

But Ted Nugent, God bless him, had to waste a fifteen minute or longer interview on CNN backtracking insults, however deserved, that it doesn't require much public relations acuity to realize should never have been uttered, because they caused him far more grief than they did his Obamunist targets.  Hell, the only reason CNN booked the interview was for the media equivalent of putting Nugent in stocks in the town square.  IOW, he made himself the topic instead of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  And in politics, when you're having to explain yourself, you're losing.

Which kind of ties in with the "Fight!  Fight!  Fight!" mantra of the Tea Party, and why my advice to TPers remains the same: Yes, "Fight!," but do so intelligently, not by launching doomed frontal assaults, or coarse verbal fusillades that play right into the enemy's hands.

Hard Starboard Radio: Obama's Land Of Inequality



Of the party elite, by the party elite, and for the party elite; The land of minimum wage make-believe; So much for the "opportunity agenda"; While the IRS crushes the Tea Party again, Big Labor prepares to buy another election; And how about a little old-fashioned privacy for sexuality of all stripes?

Contemplating the similarities between filing one's income tax return and a prostate examination at 6PM Eastern/3PM Pacific.  Now bend over.

McCaul, GOP: Pentagon Budget ‘Sacrifices Security On Altar Of Entitlements’

by JASmius

What the word I'm looking for?  "Inadvisable"?  No.  "Imprudent"?  No.  Ah, yes, here we are: "insane":

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel today outlined a five-year Pentagon budget that would shrink Army forces to fewer than before the attacks of September 11th, 2001, while retiring older weapons, including the U-2 spy plane and the A-10 attack aircraft.

"Our recommendations favor a smaller and more capable force — putting a premium on rapidly deployable, self-sustaining platforms that can defeat more technologically advanced adversaries," Hagel said in prepared remarks as he proposed a budget for fiscal year 2015 of $496 billion, in line with congressionally approved limits. [emphases added]
Let's take these one at a time.

An Army smaller than before the attacks of September 11th, 2001 in an era where, just in the context of the ex-War on Terror, al Qaeda is alive and well, in control of Libya, the Sinai, Somalia, parts of Syria and Iraq, and soon to be once again, Afghanistan, as independently re-confirmed just last week.  And they're turning their sights once more on Europe and the U.S.  Which means we've now come full circle, and that, in turn, means thousands more American civilians are going to die in the very near future.

But the global context goes way past al Qaeda to the Iranian mullahgarchy and Putin's Russia in the Middle East, and North Korea and the ChiComms in the Western Pacific.  The gutting of American military power in these theaters will spark not one, but two regional nuclear arms races, as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates, and Australia, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, respectively, are left to fend for themselves against respective regional (and nuclear) hegemons Iran and Red China - with the Russians lurking in the background of both.  This is the last and worst time imaginable to be hacking U.S. ground forces smaller not just then prior to 9/11, but to their lowest level since 1940.

This brings us to the second emphasis in the quote above.  It is a standard rule of thumb in force structuring that military planners must choose one of two philosophies: what might be dubbed "quality or quantity".  They either build huge numbers of basic, not overly expensive hardware - tanks, warships, planes, munitions, etc. - or they construct smaller numbers of high-tech hardware that can deliver much greater "bang for the buck".  During the Cold War, the old Soviet Union employed the former strategy, while the United States opted for the latter.  And although other factors certainly played a role, history records how that ultimately turned out.

Now look at Chuck Hagel's remarks again.  He's not just catastrophically downsizing U.S. numbers, but is also conceding the technological edge that is the only factor that has kept us a military superpower.  It's almost as if the Obama Regime is inviting an all-out attack on our country.

Take a look at the American aircraft - and spacecraft - depicted in the following video.....



....because you'll never see them - well, you'll never see them anyway, as they were canceled several years ago, but this just re-confirms it.  While our enemies have no such misguided priorities.

Congressional Republicans were having none of it:

The proposal for a smaller Army met immediate resistance today.

"It's going to be Congress' job to step in and move those numbers up," Republican Representative Michael Turner of Ohio, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said on Bloomberg TV's "In the Loop" program. "The world is not getting to be a safer place. This is not the time for us to begin to retreat, and certainly not the time to cut our military."

Texas Representative Michael McCaul, Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the cuts would hurt military readiness. The nation is only in this position because the Obama administration and Congress will not seriously take on cuts to entitlements, he said.

"It's all being sacrificed ... on the altar of entitlements. This president cannot take on mandatory spending, so all we've done in the Congress — and this president — is basically cut discretionary spending," McCaul said.

Retired General Jack Keane told Fox News the proposed budget cuts by the Pentagon would "cut into the bone and the capabilities of the Army."

Keane said this move reflected a poor understanding of the last century of U.S. military history.

"The assumption that's being made in the Pentagon, and it's almost laughable if it wasn't so serious, is they don't believe the United States will involve itself in a ground war of any consequence again," Keane said. "The fact of the matter is, those assumptions have been made after World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War, and every single time they have been proven wrong. Here we are making that same assumption again."

I don't think anybody at the Obamagon necessarily believes that the U.S. will never be in a ground war of any consequence again as such; I think the Regime is trying to ensure that the U.S. will never be able to get involved in a ground war of any consequence again.  Barack Obama believes that, pre-him, America was the focus of evil in the modern world, that we were the "warmongers" "arrogantly inflicting" our "bourgeois" values on "superior" foreign cultures, that we deserved to be attacked on 9/11 ("GOD DAMN AMERICA!....") and if we hadn't had so much military power we couldn't have "gotten involved" in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Call it The One's version of "pre-emption".

This isn't post-war euphoria, or a greedy pursuit of a "peace dividend," but deliberate sabotage, designed to leave the United States defenseless in a world growing logarithmically more dangerous precisely because of that sabotage.

And, one day soon, one or more or all of those enemies that were supposed to have been swept away in swooning adoration by the power of Red Barry's overrated oratory will come crashing through our borders with - take your pick - hijacked airliners again, nukes, weaponized biological agents, cyberattacks, an electromagnetic pulse attack, maybe all of the above - and America will finally get what filth like him think she's had coming to her.

And he'll get the Final Crisis he needs to cement his dictatorship.



But if that's a little too "bleep's getting real" for your taste, content yourselves with the fact that while O takes endless vacations, history takes none.

Exit question: After the terrorist nuclear attack depicted above, would Barack Obama still win a third term?  And isn't the fact that that question can be seriously posed prima facie evidence that nuking the whole country would be functionally redundant?

Satan's Killer Girl

by JASmius

Nineteen year old Miranda Barber is in jail for murder. Its time for the Christians of America to speak out against the culture of death.




By the way, get ready for "after-birth abortion".  As we predicted all along, when you near the bottom of the slippery slope, you're plummeting at transwarp velocities.

Voluntary Union

By Douglas V. Gibbs

In a thread on Warner Todd Huston's Facebook I dared to challenge the conventional wisdom that Abraham Lincoln was a "great" president.  I explained that I recognize Lincoln was in an unenviable position, with what he considered to be no good options.  However, I also articulated that Lincoln was not an abolitionist, it was something that happened to him.  He debated in the Lincoln-Douglas debates that the United States should "contain" slavery, and he even suggested at one point that if slaves were freed they should be deported.  The context in his mind could have been a variety of explanations, from racism, to just trying to find a solution that would make everyone happy.  Using the guise of war powers, he also trampled all over the constitution, leading over 600,000 lives to the slaughter with the American Civil War when the abolition of slavery was constitutionally on its way, State by State, behind a strong abolitionist movement in the South, and the reality that slavery was losing its economic viability.

Since I was not home when I made these assertions on Facebook, I was unable to properly source my findings, but off the top of my head, one of them I threw out was "The Real Lincoln" by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.  Mr. Huston explained to me that he believed DiLorenzo to be a hack writer, and worse - a liar.

As we began to escalate the conversation about Mr. DiLorenzo, Huston began to try to explain to me why DiLorenzo was such a bad source to be using, and in his soliloquy added that Thomas was also way off on his feelings that the union is voluntary.  The States, according to Warner Todd Huston, cannot secede, and they are not able to leave the union.  I challenged that statement, indicating that his assertion was not correct, and that the very fact that it was delegates from the States that created the Constitution, that makes the States the contract-makers, and it is hardly reasonable for those that make a contract to be unable to get out of that contract if they feel the other party has breached it.

Mr. Huston responded with the following:

As to his contention that everyone assumed that the Union was entirely voluntary it would have come as a surprise to James Madison who argued the exact opposite during the Nullification Crisis of 1832. In fact, Madison opposed Jefferson's wild notion that leaving the union was an obvious solution to any wrong perceived or real. (Jefferson is not to be trusted for steadfast proclamations or bedrock philosophy. His record is quite contradictory and his thoughts often meander from the well thought out to the fanciful. His contention that the laws of a nation should be thrown out every 17 years so that the contemporary society can make them anew with their own thoughts was just one example of how absurd his ideas were at times.)

On February 15th, 1830 Madison wrote to Nicholas Trist about the proceedings to create the Virginia Resolutions in 1798. They did not intend, he claimed, to "assert a right in the parties to the Constitution of the United States individually to annul within themselves acts of the Federal Government, or to withdraw from the Union". That was hardly a ringing endorsement of secession from the Father of the Constitution.

If the States are then "forced" to remain as a part of the union, how are they sovereign and autonomous?  And does that not lend to the federal government a position of power that opens it up to tyranny?

Reading the Federalist Papers, and studying Madison's Notes on the federal convention of 1787, one realizes that not only was the union intended to be voluntary, but that the States were supposed to be the one's controlling the federal government, making sure it did not become tyrannical.

Or, as the Declaration of Independence says, it is a "right" to alter or abolish the government if necessary.

Finally, John Adams said it quite well in his letter to H. Niles in 1818:  The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and habits had so little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so rare, and their knowledge of each other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action, was certainly a very difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together — a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected.

Secession, or the ability to leave the union voluntarily, is as much the right of a State as is a person's right to leave a community if they desire to do so.  The States are individual, autonomous, sovereign entities, which is a feature that makes America so exceptional.  They are a part of the union voluntarily, and if they wish to voluntarily depart from the union, that is their choice - and a valuable tool for protecting themselves against a tyrannical federal government.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Arrogant Rice, Unrespected Obama

by JASmius

* World stage worries - Americans feel Obama not respected abroad
* Pentagon's proposal - billions in military benefits getting axed
* Controversial Benghazi remarks - Rice claims regime did not mislead (lie to) Americans
* No respect? Poll: poor perception of Obama




Of course, there is some room for nuance in that Gallup survey.  To wit: When 53% of respondents say that The One isn't respected abroad, is that meant as a criticism of him or other world leaders?  Seems like that would have been a necessary follow-up question, because you know which angle the White House will take on it.

But then the Regime shrinking the Army to the smallest its been since 1940 - a year before....Pearl Harbor, and arguably a contributing factor to the willingness and eagerness of the Japanese to attack us - and laughably calling a budget that hemorrhages entitlements red ink like a fire hose, and continuing to "lead from behind" might be an indicator of which nuance is more correct.

A Well Regulated Militia is not a Regulated Militia

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The usual suspects are out to usurp the original intent of the Constitution, once again.  They have decided that "regulated" doesn't mean what the founders meant, but what they mean it to mean.  The federal government has, once again, determined that nothing is possible unless the government has its hands in the cookie jar.

Then, to make matters worse, ignorant idiots in regards to the Constitution, and our God-given rights, like Al Sharpton, butchers it all even worse trying to give examples regarding things they have no clue about.

For example, the first two paragraphs of a recent Daily Caller article reads:

Following a public policy meeting of African-American leaders, National Urban League president Marc Morial and National Action Network president Al Sharpton called for a new national assault weapons ban, saying the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should be regulated.

“The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are not absolute. One cannot yell fire in a crowded theater and hide behind the First Amendment,” said Morial when asked by TheDC if he supports California Democratic Sen. Diane Feinstein’s assault weapon ban bill.


Morial misses the whole point.  The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are absolute, when applied to the federal government.  If local government wishes to have laws, as prescribed by the people, that is one thing, but those issues are none of the federal government's business.  In reference to his freedom of speech quip, he's right, the "right" of freedom of speech does not mean someone should yell "fire" in a crowded theater, but where he is missing it is that then is a situation that should be handled by local authorities and local laws.  In other words, if a State, or municipality, wants to have a law making it illegal to scream "fire" in a theater, they have that authority.  But the federal government does not.

As for the comment about "assault weapons," of which their definition includes labeling firearms that are not technically assault weapons into the big ol' bowl of assault weapons, once again, it is none of the federal government's business - and since the whole purpose of the Second Amendment is to enable We The People to defend ourselves against a tyrannical government, should we not have as much fire power as the federal government?

The primary confusion, however, in regards to the Second Amendment rests in the very first words of the clause.  It begins, "A well-regulated militia."  But that does not mean a "controlled by government" militia.  In fact, if you go to the original definition of "regulated," you realize that the knuckleheads like Sharpton, and his fellow idiot leftist democrats, aren't even close to what was originally intended.

First of all, let's remember, our rights are natural, given to us by the Creator. So, with that in mind, understand that The Second Amendment does not give you the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment does not protect you against the government from taking away your guns. Your rights are given to you by God, and protecting your rights are your responsibility.

There is no enumeration in the Constitution that grants to the federal government the authority to regulate firearms. In the first seven articles the authority to regulate firearms at the federal level is not granted. In the Second Amendment, the federal government is told it "shall" not infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms. But that was only added to the Constitution because the Anti-federalists feared that if it was not in writing, the federal government would ultimately infringe on our God-given gun rights.

The Second Amendment begins with a call for "A well regulated militia." A well regulated militia is not one regulated by the government, as assumed by many folks because of their flawed notion regarding the definition of the word "regulated." The part of the amendment that calls for a well-regulated militia is stating that the militia must be a fighting force that is in good order.

We must remember that the word “regulated” in 1791 did not necessarily mean “to control and restrict,” as the statists claim in today's political atmosphere. The word “regulated,” according to the 1828 version of Webster’s Dictionary, was defined as meaning: “to put in good order.” The need to have a militia in good order makes sense when one considers that during the Revolutionary War the militia was not in good order. The muskets were all different sizes, often the clothing of some members of the militia was tattered, and many didn’t even have shoes. Remember, one of the things Martha Washington was well known for was that she darned socks for the militia because many didn't have socks to keep their feet warm in the cold winter months of the Revolutionary War.  So, a well regulated militia, from the point of the view of the founders, was a militia that was in good order.

The need for the citizens to be armed was made evident during the Revolutionary War, and the importance of gun ownership by the people of that generation was clearly portrayed by the context of the Battle of Lexington Green, where the first shot of The Revolution was fired.

The British Troops were marching toward Concord, Massachusetts, and a rag tag company of the Massachusetts Militia met the Redcoats at Lexington, to confront them, and stop them. A shot rang out, which triggered a gun battle, and the War for Independence was in full gear.

But why was stopping the British at Lexington so imperative? What made the revolutionaries so intent on doing whatever it took to prevent the British army from gaining access to Concord?

Concord was the home of our largest munitions depot. Guns and ammunition were stored in Concord. So, it can be said that the final straw - what made us fighting mad enough that we began a bloody revolution against England - was when they came for our guns.

The current push for gun control is not the first effort by the federal government to go after our ability to defend ourselves, and it won't be the last.

Anti-Federalists feared the creation of a central government because they feared the federal government would become tyrannical, and take away people’s rights. Therefore, even though the Constitution in the first seven articles did not grant to the federal government any authority over gun rights, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights, those skeptical over the creation of a central government wanted an amendment that clarified clearly that the federal government had no authority to infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. The Second Amendment is the article that spells out the terms regarding gun rights in America, as the Anti-federalists desired.

We have to remember that State Sovereignty is an important factor, here. All powers belonged to the States prior to the writing of the Constitution. The first seven articles did not give to the federal government the authority to regulate firearms, therefore, any legislative power over gun rights is a State power. The Tenth Amendment supports the States' rights regarding this issue, and the Second Amendment confirms the limits placed on the federal government regarding guns.

This does not mean the States have the right to infringe on your gun rights, however. Remember, your right to keep and bear arms is a personal, fundamental, natural right given to you by God. The founders did not worry about the States infringing on gun rights, because the local governments were closer to the people. They expected you to protect your right to keep and bear arms, and to not let your State become tyrannical regarding that issue. But in today's political environment, the argument has become all about the tyranny of the States. If the Second Amendment does not apply to the States, what keeps the States from infringing on gun rights? They seem to be stomping on our right to our guns quite readily.

My response to that query is always the same: "So don't let them." Gun rights, be they protected in the Second Amendment, or listed in your State Constitution, is nothing more than ink on paper if you are not willing to defend those gun rights.

The only thing that can put our rights in jeopardy concerning State governments would be if we became so complacent that we stopped taking action to protect our rights. With freedom comes the responsibility to fight for your freedoms.

Noah Webster in his “An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution,” in 1787 said it clearly: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States."

The federal government knows this, which is why they are trying to use the courts to overrule your sovereignty, and to limit the kinds of firearms, and ammunition, you can own.

The reason that the Second Amendment is absolute in its language is because it was intended to only apply to the federal government. The federal government shall not infringe on the right to keep and bear arms in any way, but the States retain the authority to regulate guns as necessary based on the needs and allowances of the local electorate.

The whole point of the right to keep and bear arms is so that we have an armed militia to protect the people from a tyrannical government.

But why, I am often asked, is it so important to have a right to keep and bear arms in this civilized society?  You don't really believe that the federal government in America could become tyrannical, do you?

You have a right to keep and bear arms, as the Second Amendment says, because it is "necessary to the security of a free State." Here, the word "State" does not mean "civil government" as assumed, but instead refers to the individual States. So, the right to keep and bear arms is necessary to the security of your State, be it Virginia, Maryland, New York, California, or wherever. And the word "necessary" is a pretty definitive term. So our gun rights are "necessary" to the security of a free State. From whom? Invaders? Don't we have the organized military forces for protecting our States from foreign invaders?

If we don't need to be armed to protect our states from foreign invasion, then why was it so important to the Founding Fathers to ensure that Americans remained armed?

Who does that leave as a potential enemy that the founders felt it "necessary" to arm the citizens to protect their States?

I believe the language is as such to remind us that the right to keep and bear arms is necessary to protect the States against a tyrannical central government, should one rise at the federal level.

The amendment was written specifically with the federal government in mind, which explains why it ends with the words "shall not be infringed." That means that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be restricted in any way by the federal government. That would make all federal gun regulations unconstitutional.

I once heard a woman on a radio program say, "We don't need a militia, we aren't fighting the British anymore."

Tyranny takes many forms, and the British was only one example.

The only thing that can put our rights in jeopardy concerning State governments would be if we became so complacent that we stopped taking action to protect our rights.

Once again, with freedom comes responsibility.

In early American society the need to be armed was necessary for a number of reasons, including protecting one’s property, facilitating a natural right of self-defense, participating in law enforcement, enabling people to participate in an organized militia system, deterring a tyrannical government, repelling invasion, suppressing insurrection, and hunting.

The right to keep and bear arms is not merely about protecting your home, or hunting, though those are important too. The whole point of the Second Amendment is to protect us against all enemies, foreign and domestic, which could include a potentially oppressive central government.

They say it is for our safety. They say they want to restrict firearms just a little more for our security.
Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither."

The militia still exists, but we have been silent because we have had no need to organize, but I believe that we still have a need for an unorganized citizen militia, and that it may organize once again if the tyrants in Washington decide to monkey with the Second Amendment, and use force to take our guns.

Now, our homes are Concord, and the federal government is rapidly approaching Lexington Green.  The question is, are we still passionate about liberty, or are we going to give in, and give up?

The Declaration of Independence ends as follows:
'
"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."

Earlier, near the beginning of the same document, it reads, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to 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."

How would the right to alter or abolish the government, should it become a tyranny, be possible if the people were not armed?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary


Governors: ObamaCare Here To Stay

by JASmius

A textbook case of a self-fulfilling prophecy:

No matter where they stand on ObamaCare, America's governors agree on one thing about President Barack Obama's controversial healthcare overhaul: It's not going away.

"We're just trying to make the best of a bad situation," said Republican Governor Terry Branstad, of Iowa at a meeting of the nation's governors in Washington, D.C., this weekend.

"We're trying to make it work as best we can for the people of Iowa," said Branstad, who calls the healthcare law "unaffordable and unsustainable," yet something he has to implement by law.

Governors from both parties report that a full repeal of the law would be complicated at best, if not impossible, as states move forward with implementation and begin covering millions of people — both by expanding Medicaid rolls for lower-income resident or through state or federal exchanges that offer federal subsidies to those who qualify.

I'm of two minds about this story.  As a realist I recognized that the last chance to get rid of ObamaCare was the 2012 election; remove its namesake, elect Mitt Romney in his place, and repeal would be a serious possibility because the core implementation hadn't taken place yet.  Tragically, this didn't happen, which meant another four years of O (at least) and at least that long for ObamaCare to become irremovably entrenched.  So in this sense, governors are simply seeing the handwriting on the wall.

But what about nullification, you may be asking?  As you might imagine, this is far more of a political matter than a constitutional one:

Nullification, in United States constitutional history, is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. The theory of nullification has been rejected repeatedly and rarely legally upheld by the Federal courts.

The theory of nullification is based on a view that the States formed the Union by an agreement (or "compact") among the States, and that as creators of the federal government, the States have the final authority to determine the limits of the power of that government. Under this, the compact theory, the States and not the federal courts are the ultimate interpreters of the extent of the federal government's power. Under this theory, the States therefore may reject, or nullify, federal laws that the States believe are beyond the federal government's constitutional powers....

Courts at the state and federal level have generally rejected the constitutionality of nullification, including the Supreme Court.[2] The courts have decided that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal law is superior to state law, and that under Article III of the Constitution, the federal judiciary has the final power to interpret the Constitution. Therefore, according to the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Supremacy Clause, the power to make final decisions about the constitutionality of federal laws lies with the federal courts, not the states, and the states do not have the power to nullify federal laws.
There's just one wee problem with the above; Article III makes no mention of "judicial review," nor does it exclusively empower the courts as the arbiters of constitutionality.  That power was illegally glommed by the infamous Chief Justice John Marshall in the equally infamous case Marbury v. Madison.  What Article III does do is establish the Supreme Court's case jurisdiction.

Which brings us to the aforementioned Supremacy Clause, under Article VI Section II, the actual justification for governors' collective feelings of hopeless resignation:

The Supremacy Clause is the provision in Article Six of the United States Constitution, Clause 2, that establishes the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and U.S. treaties as "the supreme law of the land." The text provides that these are the highest form of law in the U.S. legal system, and mandates that all state judges must follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either the state constitution or state law of any state.

Wow.  I guess that's that, then.  Endgame.

Or is it?  What does the Supremacy Clause actually say:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land, and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Well, now.  So unconstitutional laws are not the supreme law of the land, and the states are free to disregard - or "nullify" - them.  But this gets us right back to judicial review, which we're told by judges gives them the sole right to determine constitutionality by way of.....judicial review.  And that judicial review decided that ObamaCare was constitutional.  Or, to put it another way, an unconstitutional law was unconstitutionally declared constitutional.

And that gets us back to the matter of this being more a case of political will - even moreso constitutional knowledge - than constitutionality.  With 211 years of entrenchment and momentum behind it, the concept of judicial review is part of the de facto "law of the land," while nullification is obscure and considered so "fringe-y" as to not even be a legal theory.  So I, personally, wouldn't be so hard on GOP governors over this.

What's that expression about "nature, red of tooth and claw," though?  ObamaCare is unaffordable and unsustainable, among other "Things," as Governor Branstad observed.  It's laying waste to both American health care and what's left of the U.S. economy.  The question is, will, at some point, a majority of Americans finally exclaim, "mevyap!" and be willing to support repeal, or will their corrupt obliviousness keep us inescapably in poverty and serfdom?

I'd only add that the entrenchment factor applies just as much, if not more, to Da Peepul than it does to state governors.  And you can extrapolate from there what that does to the chances for nullification of the Patient Predation & Unaffordable Care-Less Act.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Unending Battle

Posted by Douglas V. Gibbs

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -- Thomas Jefferson

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Susan Rice: No Regrets On Benghazi Comments

by JASmius

Given that she was rewarded with a promotion from UN ambassador to National Security Advisor for her mendatious efforts, no bleep:

Making her first Sunday morning appearance since the Sunday after the 2012 Benghazi attacks, National Security Adviser Susan Rice says she has no regrets on her words that day which have drawn scrutiny ever since.

"Because what I said to you that morning and what I did every day since is to share the best information that we had at the time," Rice told "Meet the Press" host David Gregory.
Bullbleep.  They saw the whole event in real time.  They knew exactly what was happening and why and what caused it, but because "Looks like al Qaeda isn't so 'dead' after all" looked really bad less than two months from the 2012 election, they had no problem sacrificing three Navy SEALS and an ambassador and making a political prisoner of a very unlucky youtube publisher in order to keep it quiet.  And the Obamedia happily cooperated, which is why Rice was spewing bovine scatology to David Gregory this morning.

She admitted to Gregory on Sunday that not all of the information she shared in 2012 turned out to be 100% correct.

"But the notion that somehow I or anybody else in the administration misled the American people is patently false," she said. "And I think that's been amply demonstrated."
It has not been any such thing.  But I don't think we can say that Rice and her big-eared boss know it.  Perhaps they did know it at one time and have long since programmed themselves to believe the lie.  Or maybe they're just so contemptuous of their enemies (us) and the larger American public that the only thing about which they are ever transparent is that abject contempt.  Either way, the totalitarian memory hole is alive and well and impenetrable.

My guess is Rice was sent on Press the Meat to send a message to the Tea Party and allied congressional Republicans: "The story of Benghazi has been written, and it is what we say it is.  You'll never get the lowliest underling from my Regime before any of your pathetic committees, and nobody will ever hear your risible version of the events of September 11, 2012 outside your Nazi wingnut echo chamber.  So you'd all be well-advised to get toeing the party line, or the socialist mental hospitals set up by the ACA will start receiving patients considerably ahead of schedule."

Such cosmic arrogance can only result in a redoubling of GOP investigatory efforts, and absolutely should.  But this is a naked indication of how hopelessly difficult meting out justice to the perps in the Benghazi attack is going to be.

Case in point:

Though Obama vowed during the 2012 re-election campaign to bring the perpetrators to justice, Gregory noted that no one has yet arrested.

Rice said that promise still stands.

"We will get the perpetrators. We will stay on it till it gets done," she said.
See what I mean?

And, BTW, here's an interesting postscript:

Chris Wallace, host of "Fox News Sunday," noted that his program had asked the administration for its views about the violent protests in Ukraine, but that the White House "decided to put national security adviser Susan Rice on only one show today," as opposed to all five in 2012.

"Of course, Fox has led the way in questioning how the administration handled Benghazi. Perhaps Susan Rice didn't want to answer the tough questions we would have asked," Wallace said.

Guess they don't have their bleep together on this one yet.

Local Third Parties

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Conventional wisdom says, and in this rare occasion conventional wisdom is correct, that third parties splits the vote and enables the party in opposition to the party whose vote is being split to more easily gain position in office.  For example, H. Ross Perot split the republican vote in 1992, which enabled Bill Clinton to win the presidency with ease when the percentage of the vote he obtained would have never won in prior election cycles.  A little over a hundred years ago Teddy Roosevelt, running on the Bull Moose Party ticket, split the republican vote so that ultra-progressive Woodrow Wilson could take the presidency from Taft, setting up the opportunity for leftism to create the Federal Reserve, a direct tax (income tax) with the 16th Amendment, and kick the voice of the States out of the American political system with the 17th Amendment (which changed how the senators gain office from appointment by the State legislatures to a popular vote by the people).  So, on a large scale, third parties can be dangerous.  On the national stage voting for a third party splits the vote, and allows candidates that oppose your political position an easier road into office.

This is not to say that third parties should not exist.  As parties like the Republican Party have proven, adherence to the values and ideology of the base is not always something we can trust a political party to honor.  Local influence on your political party may assist in turning it in the direction you desire, but on a national scale, getting the party to return to its base's desired political position can be a nightmare, and is an immediate impossibility.  Change for the better is not something that can be engineered at the national level.  Working to influence the party nationally is important, but it will never permanently alter the direction the party is headed.  Such a change in direction must be initiated locally.

Activism includes attending and influencing school board meetings, utilities meetings, city council meetings, planning department meetings, public hearings, and attending and participating in your party's central committee meetings.  We have to be influential locally, for even if we were able to get rid of the politicians we have a problem with nationally, what good would it be if we don't have honest local people available to replace them?

Locally, however, third parties that, in the case of frustrated republicans, are more conservative, can make an impact, and may not necessarily split the vote.  In fact, many of your city council races don't allow candidates to discuss party affiliations, so the political philosophies of the individual candidates are even more important at an individual level.  If a third party is influencing politics locally, and is not expending money and efforts nationally, it can only be a good thing.  Perhaps that is the way to start making headway.

And if one third party does well locally, maybe it will catch fire, and become a national party that will replace, or compete with, the major parties of today.  But we have to remember, the way to do that is to begin locally, for biting off more than a small party can chew nationally is a proven disaster in the making, and causes more harm than good.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Venezuela goes the way of Ukraine, and Detroit

By Douglas V. Gibbs

In breaking news that the American mainstream media is barely touching upon, Ukraine and Venezuela are both in the midst of violence, mass protests, and economic upheaval.  As Kiev burns, the Venezuelans have taken to the streets to either support, or oppose, Hugo Chavez's replacement, President Nicolas Maduro.  The government has asked women to rally around the presidential palace (dressed in socialist red) - - - Why? So that the cowardly socialist can use the women as a shield like the diffident Muslim jihadists do?

As street crime rises, Venezuela boasts one of the highest murder rates in the world, unemployment is reaching incredible heights, inflation rages at a rate of 60% a year, limits have been imposed on travel and expression, and pro-government groups march through the streets armed like soldiers ready to engage an enemy, it is only recent memory that the marchers began their protests only two weeks ago.  The whole dang thing began as a student-led street movement demanding that the government address safety concerns on a university campus following the assault of a student.  The marches spread to other cities, and in the capital, Caracas, the street marches were spearheaded by opposition leader Leopoldo López, who called for protests to continue until the president, Nicolás Maduro stepped down from power.

Maduro claims the protests are only occurring in a minority of cities, that those cities are controlled by opposition forces, and he believes this could be the early stages of a U.S. backed coup (so all American officials have been expelled from the country).  In other words, "Most people love me, it is just a few, extreme, radical right-wingers doing this, and it is all America's fault."

Hmmmm, for some reason that sounds familiar.

Since the protests began, 10 people have died, 137 have been injured and 104 arrested, according to government figures.

The reality is, Venezuela, which was once a prosperous nation, is a failed state under the oppression of leftist socialism.  The government is rampant with corruption, the oil revenue has been mismanaged, and the policies of nationalism have destroyed the nation's economic system.  Basic grocery items are not available.  The currency has been devalued, and the inflation numbers are as high as the number of jobs available is low, and as low as the low wages being offered.  A drive for making Venezuela the standard for socialism has ended the same way all leftist experiments end - with failure, misery, and a leadership that lusts for more power.

One Venezuelan says he saw where they were headed from the beginning.  "After Hugo Chavez was elected president, we started a journey of lies, manipulations and abuse of power. . . The reaction of the government has been always to pretend that nothing is going on or to blame opposition of everything, but we just got fed up with being abused and threatened."

Again, all of this sounds eerily familiar.

The government of President Nicolas Maduro is only 10 months old.  How quickly the less charismatic dictator failed to cover-up the problems of the socialist utopia, and how quickly the citizens, who were already suspecting there were problems, rose up.  As with the American Colonists, as verbalized by John Adams, "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced.  The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people."

First Lady Cilia Flores called on supporters to be alert for opposition attempts to incite more violence in the days ahead to create conditions for a Ukraine-like power grab.

"Venezuela isn't Ukraine," Flores, who rarely speaks in public but is a close adviser to her husband, told the crowd. "The right-wing fascists aren't going to impose themselves here."

"This is a rich country and we can't even buy a kilo of flour, a rich country but we live in misery," Marta Rivas, a 39-year-old mother of two, said as she joined the San Cristobal march.

This is what has happened to the nation that American leftists like Sean Penn calls paradise.  The shining example of what liberal left progressive political philosophies can be, turned out to be what liberal left led nations always tend to wind up being - a failure.

Liberalism fails wherever, and whenever, it is tried.

Leftists around the world held Chavez's Venezuela up as the apple in the eye of Marx, the last hope for humanity in a world of fat cat bankers and austerity Scrooges.

In the end it turned out to be the same failed socialist experiment, with dictatorial leaders, a collapsing economy, and misery spread evenly throughout the entire nation.  Two classes have emerged.  The have-nots, and the ruling elite.

Protests have risen up, an armed military has been ordered to patrol the streets so as to crush any semblance of opposition to the government's wishes and desires, the press is being forced to give the government's side of the story, members of the opposition is being arrested for daring to rise up against the mighty government, and the contradictions of socialist nationalism has become nothing more than the corrupt, evil, uncaring government the socialists claimed to replace.

The working poor were convinced that there was a conspiracy, that they were victims of the rich and powerful, but that the socialists would save them, create an economic boom, and provide the path to progress and good times for all. But it turned out those that claimed there was a conspiracy were not lying, for they were the conspiracy, they were the ones that were making civil society stagnate, they were the ones mismanaging the economy, and it was their policies that were making victims of the working poor as the socialist leaders became fat and powerful.

Economies cannot be engineered.  You can't buy prosperity.  Paradise cannot be forced, bought, or enabled through government.

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said that, "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

When the money runs out, only totalitarianism holds what is left of the country together.

Liberalism fails whenever, and wherever it is tried, and Venezuela, like the Ukraine, and Detroit, is showing us how every experiment in Marxism ends.

With pain, suffering, and bloodshed.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary


Opposition, pro-govt rallies grip Venezuela - Yahoo News/Associated Press