Political Pistachio

Establishment Works to Eliminate Allen West's District in Florida

2012-02-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

California: What Happens When Liberals Run a State

2012-02-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

Controller: State to run out of cash in March without action

California will run out of cash by early March if the state does not take swift action to find $3.3 billion through payment delays and borrowing, according to a letter state Controller John Chiang sent to state lawmakers today.

The announcement is surprising since lawmakers previously believed the state had enough cash to last through the fiscal year that ends in June.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama's Next Trillion Dollars

2012-02-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

For the fourth year in a row, Washington faces a $1 trillion-plus deficit and just servicing the nation’s debt will soon cost as much as paying for Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled.

Those were two grim predictions in a 147-page report from the Congressional Budget Office, which Tuesday stepped into the 2012 campaign like some stern Aunt Cassandra — coming down from the attic to lecture the protagonists: “It’s not just the economy stupid, it’s also the debt.”

Politico

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Thomas Jefferson: Genuine History

2012-02-01T08:05:00.000-08:00

"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1817

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

GOP works to approve Keystone Pipeline

2012-02-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

GOP Moves to Approve Keystone Pipeline... without Obama

How many speeches has Barack Obama given on jobs? How many times has he said the economy is his number one priority? Unfortunately, his rhetoric doesn't match his actions. The only suitable job worth creating to him is a government job. When it came time to approve the Keystone Pipeline, a project that would transport oil from Canada to the refineries in the Gulf states, Obama said no. Tens of thousands of jobs would have been created, but politics won the day. Now, GOP members of the U.S. Senate are using the Constitution in an attempt to approve the pipeline without Obama's consent.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama and the Saddest Place on Earth

2012-02-01T00:01:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Romney win in Florida does not put nails in anyone's coffin

2012-01-31T20:03:00.000-08:00

Florida Primary, with 95% of the vote in, is as follows:

Romney 46%
Gingrich 32%
Santorum 13%
Paul 7%

Looking at the map, one will notice that, as in the other states, Romney won the population centers (which tend to lean liberal), and Gingrich won the more rural counties (which tend to be more conservative). This suggests that Newt will do well in rural America. . . but first Romney will pick up most of the next few states (like Nevada and Michigan).

Before folks start counting anyone out, including Santorum, remember, there are a lot of delegates still up for grabs. This is only four states.

Also, because Romney is so moderate, if he wins the nomination, he will probably lose the conservative vote in the general election, which would put Obama into position to win in November. That is very dangerous, because Obama would be a lame duck president, and you can't imagine how radical he'll be in his second term should he be re-elected.

Gingrich's lack of money compared to Romney, and not even being on the ballot in Missouri, will make it an uphill battle for Newt, but it is not over.

Santorum may still have an opportunity as well.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Florida Primary 2012 - Fox News

Benjamin Franklin - Uniformity

2012-01-31T16:00:00.000-08:00

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened." --Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Constitutional Revival and the Real Concerns of Conservative Americans

2012-01-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I was talking to a friend of mine named Gryph last night who lives in South Dakota, and he was asking me about my radio program. I told him how it is growing, and how it is now on three stations across the country. The owner of the mother station has told me I am one of his best hosts, and there are a lot of people pushing to try to get me on during the week to compete against the big boys. I'm a capitalist, so I won't mind that at all.

In the conversation, I told my buddy about how I am tightening the show up, trying to make it more in line with industry standards, and how I am trying to infuse more Constitution talk on the program, using the model I use for my Constitution classes.

My friend responded, revealing great concerns for this country, "I am not holding out much hope for a constitutional revival anymore."

I said, "I am an optimist. Problem is, people usually don't wake up until their face bounces off the bottom of the gutter."

He replied, "So what constitutes that sort of gutter bouncing of which you speak?‎ Nobody gives a greasy brown turd as long as it's not their ox being gored. And when I try to point that out in more polite terms, I'm almost always treated like a lunatic.‎ It's frustrating."

I thought a moment about what he said, then added, "Obama was one of the gutter bounces, hence the reason for the rise of the TEA Party. However, it may need to get worse before it gets better."

My friend is not the same kind of optimist I am, I suppose, but I understand what he is trying to say, and turning this ship around may take a long while.

He said, "Exactly my fear. If Obama was one of the gutter bounces, why are so many self-proclaimed 'conservatives' so afraid of him? Cowardice, I tell you. We're a nation of cowards."

I don't think this is a nation of cowards, but I do think people are swayed way too easily by the media, and the establishment. I told my friend, "They believe the establishment, without understanding that the establishment is damn near as progressive as the Democrats. What is funny is that as liberal as Obama is, there are actually some democrats out there that think he's too conservative. I even had one liberal tell me he thought Obama is more conservative than Bush. It boggles the mind."

He said, "Bush didn't understand the constitution any better than most of the rest of them do, but at least his heart was in the right place."

Not wanting to necessarily defend George W. Bush, I said, "Bush was pretty bad domestically. I disagreed with his pharmaceutical deal, his No Child Left Behind big government intrusion into education, and he was dead wrong buying into TARP. But, on 911, I can think of no other person in politics at that time I would have wanted in the White House."

He replied, "Yeah. He was bad domestically. But I will always believe he was a fundamentally decent person who wanted to do what he believed was good for America (even on those numerous occasions when he was horrendously wrong)."

I reminded him, "That is the big difference between Obama and Bush. Bush made the bad decisions he made based on good intentions, but a bad premise. . . not that I am defending Bush by saying he had good intentions. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. But in Obama's case, he hates this country as it was founded, and is purposely working to transform this nation into something different, even if it hurts. He is an ideologue. The people be damned, he will do what he wants despite the damage it causes, because he hates capitalism, American style liberty, etc."

He said, "Well here's hoping we can get this Charlie Foxtrat FUBAR figured out soon enough that there will be something left of America worth saving."

I added, "We better, because an Obama win would put a lame duck liberal in the White House, and without anything holding him back, there is no telling what Obama would do to destroy this nation during his second term."

"Please don't misunderstand me, Doug. In asserting my belief that George W. Bush is a fundamentally decent human being, I am in no way attempting to remotely excuse the way he had grossly fumbled on constitutional understanding."

"I agree. But, being a decent human being didn't trump the training he had received from his 'new world order' father, Bush 41."

He responded, "Indeed."

I said, "Reagan chose Bush as a running mate in that second election because Bush was popular in the Northeast, where Reagan was not doing as well in the polls. He picked Bush to pick up those states. Remember, moderate to liberal Republicans tend to be more popular in the Northeast, which should tell you much about Bush 41."

And which should tell you much about Romney as this Florida Primary kicks into high gear.

A little reminder about Florida. First, they lost half their delegates for moving their primary up. Second, there is still 46 States left, so the race is far from over. Don't believe the media and talking heads if they start saying it is done. Third, remember that if no candidate has a majority of delegates by the end, we could very well see a brokered convention. The convention in 1976 was brokered, and this one may very well wind up being one too.

We'll see.

By the way, a brokered convention is not necessarily a bad thing.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Thomas Jefferson's Opinion of Obama's Class Warfare

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas Jefferson

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Stronger Voter ID Laws are not Enough

2012-01-31T04:00:00.000-08:00

By Kevin Price

The media has been up in arms recently over the move by many concerned Americans to try and require improved voter ID requirements in order to fulfill one of the most sacred aspects of government. It is simply unfair to have elections stolen by ghosts (AKA “dead people) and gangsters (AKA “community organizers). The United States government has, for years, put a premium on the act of voting. The idea has become, the more people voting, the better. Are you getting your license renewed? Apply for a voters registration! Are you applying for Food Stamps? Go ahead and register to vote! This idea, however, goes completely against the grain of trying to maintain a responsible government. Our Founding Fathers believed in the idea of "quality of vote" versus "quantity of vote," which is the mantra we seem to live under today. If the left is incensed over voter ID, imagine how they would react to voter integrity? If we fought for voter integrity, ID might be an easy “given.”

We all know that in the early days of our republic, an entire gender (females) and ethnic group (Blacks) were not allowed to vote. What most of us are not taught, however is that the vast majority of the population (regardless of race) was not allowed to vote in those early years. Voting was largely determined by states and virtually all of them had property ownership requirements that excluded, by many estimates, as much as 90 percent of the population. The discrimination practiced by the early leaders was not nearly as inclined toward race, as it was making sure that those who participate had a vested interest in the process. Those with property had to pay taxes directly, giving them (in the eyes of the early leaders) a right to participate in the process.

The classical economist John Stuart Mill argued that, if any person was receiving money from the government, they should be prohibited from voting until they were financially free from any assistance. This idea would not be merely welfare recipients, but corporate "fat cats" getting subsidies from Uncle Sam. Mill argued that there was no way to maintain a small and reasonable government if people could vote benefits for themselves. It was similar to serving on the board of an organization and being allowed to vote on something that directly benefits you. That would be bad form and everyone would expect you to "abstain." "Abstain" we all should do if we are eating at the trough.

Unfortunately, that was then, and this is now. Such a proposal would not be politically palpable. What if there was a third way beyond the "anyone with a pulse can vote" mentality pervasive today and the elitist position found earlier in our nation's history? It is against the law for candidates to campaign for office within a certain distance of voting locations. That is why, when you walk up, you are bombarded with people offering you flyers up to an invisible line. Yet, the single most important information -- party affiliation -- is actually seen on your ballots. Worse still, we allow people to vote "straight ticket," requiring absolutely no thought at all.

To restore integrity in the ballot box, we should remove party affiliation from every ballot entirely and from voting locations. This will require every person who goes in to vote to know exactly for whom they are voting and why. They should not be provided a "cheat sheet" in the form of the ballot for the most important test they take for liberty each election cycle. Those who cry "foul" will be implying their followers cannot read or lack the faculties to make such decisions. What an insult to their constituents. Without party identification, our elections will become a sober task in maintaining our liberty and not a celebration of ignorance. Will we have fewer voters? Most definitely, but we will have a higher percentage of more thoughtful voters.

--

Kevin Price

Host

Price of Business on KNTH 1070, PriceofBusiness.com

Home of Bloomberg Radio

Publisher and Editor in Chief, USDailyReview.com

Frequently found on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com

Syndicated columnist whose articles appear on a variety of media outlets.

Follow Kevin on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/KevinPriceLive

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Understanding the Eligibility Issue, Regarding Obama, Rubio. . .

2012-01-30T23:59:00.000-08:00

I received an e-mail from one of the students of my Constitution Class in Temecula, California asking about eligibility. She is still having trouble grasping the definition, largely because the education system and media has been sending us mixed messages on the issue. The following is my reply:

Your first premise is wrong. You said to be a natural born citizen both parents have to be born here. That is not correct. To be a natural born citizen both parents need to have been citizens at the time of birth of the child. Citizenship is not only just being born here. If my wife had naturalized as a citizen before our kids were born, they would be natural born citizens, but she didn't naturalize until after they were born, making them only native born citizens.

In some circles it was just the father that needed to be a citizen, but reading Vatell's Law of Nations, it needs to be both parents, in order for someone to be a Natural Born Citizen.

If a child is born here of non-citizen parents their citizenship depends on the jurisdiction of the parents. For example, my wife's sisters were born here in the United States, but their parents were not citizens. However, they were here legally on resident alien cards (green cards) which means the parents fell under the full jurisdiction of the United States. Therefore, despite my wife's sisters being born to non-citizen parents, they are citizens because the parents were here as legal residents. Note that they are not natural born citizens, because their parents were not citizens at the time of their birth.

Yes, Marco Rubio's parents were not citizens of the United States at the time of his birth. Like Virginia's sisters, he is a citizen because Rubio's parents were legal residents of the United States. However, because they were not citizens at the time of his birth, he is not a natural born citizen, making him ineligible for Vice President (Vice President must also meet eligibility requirements of President).

Blessings,

Douglas V. Gibbs

www.politicalpistachio.com

www.douglasvgibbs.com

Constitution Radio, KCAA, KCXL, WHTH

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

I Guess I Will Be The One To Say It. Newt, You Are A Liar!

2012-01-30T19:45:00.000-08:00

By J.J. Jackson

Just like when I hear fingernails on a chalkboard, I cringe every time Newt Gingrich opens his mouth to spout off about how he helped balance the budget during the 1990s. It is even more annoying when he claims to have done so not just once, but four times. Do I get annoyed because Newt had nothing to do with the balanced budgets of the 1990’s? Nope. It is because there never was a ‘balanced budget’ at all going back to the Republican Revolution of 1994.

It is not only Newt who loves to tell this Big Lie of a balanced budget. Former President Clinton likes to bloviate about the phantom ‘balanced budget’ as well since it supposedly happened under his tenure. Many other politicians who were in Washington at the time also try desperately to hitch their horses to this myth as they try to bolster their bona fides as being fiscally conservative.

I know that it is taken as a matter of faith that there was a balanced budget under Newt and the Republican Congresses that existed during Bill Clinton’s presidency. But the facts, as they say, are stubborn things. Back in 2005, the last time the myth of not only a balanced budget but actually a phantom budget surplus gained life, I wrote “The Surplus Fallacy”[1]. Boy, did I get a lot hate mail on that article. Liberals accused me of making up the numbers because they were desperate to defend Bill Clinton’s legacy, have him remembered for something other than using an intern as a humidor and being Newt Gingrich’s whipping boy. So-called conservatives accused me of being a closet liberal trying to discredit the greatest achievement of the Republican Party in recent times. No one ever actually provided any evidence to dispute the numbers however. How could they? The numbers are what the numbers are. And now with Newt and his annoyingly shrill PAC bringing renewed attention to the myth of the budget being supposedly balanced at one time in recent memory, I think it is time to revisit the facts. I will not let them be slaughtered for political expedience upon some partisan altar.

Those who claim that at some point after 1994 the United States was actually running a budget surplus use a lot of not so cute tricks to accomplish this. Sometimes what they do is look at only portions of the whole budget. Sometimes they ignore non-discretionary spending. Other times they ignore interest on the debt completely. They spin themselves sick trying to justify how they can exclude all too real expenditures from the budget in order to make it appear to have been balanced on paper. But ask yourself this, in the real world where you and I live, can you really get away with not counting all debits and expenses when determining how much money you have left over? Can you ignore $30,000 on your credit card and just pretend it does not exist? Of course you cannot.

Another sly trick these people use is that they look at some select data points within an actual fiscal year. They see that on February 2, 2001 the debt owed by the United States was $5.692 trillion and that back on February 2, 2000 it was $5.702 trillion. Thus they wondrously proclaim that they had “balanced the budget”. Not only that, but they also claim to have “run a surplus”. Even sites like PolitiFact.com [2] lie and claim that the there were not only balanced budgets but mythical "surpluses", although not as many as Newt claims. God only knows where they are getting their numbers from.

The BIG problem with that methodology though is that the fiscal year of the United States runs from October 1st of one year through September 30th of the next. When you look at the entire fiscal year you see that the debt owed by the federal government actually increased despite these not very covert accounting gimmicks. When I point this out, the first response is shock. Where did these numbers come from? Well, they come right from the Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Public Debt [3]. Yep, these are not my numbers. These are the government’s own numbers.

Here are the deficits by year which the United States racked up from 1994 through 2006[4]. To calculate these numbers you just simply subtract the later year’s debt from the previous year’s debt.

From 10/1/1993 through 9/30/1994: $286,410,336,579.85
From 10/1/1994 through 9/30/1995: $281,232,990,696.07
From 10/1/1995 through 9/30/1996: $250,828,038,426.34
From 10/1/1996 through 9/30/1997: $188,335,072,261.61
From 10/1/1997 through 9/30/1998: $113,046,997,500.28
From 10/1/1998 through 9/30/1999: $130,077,892,735.81
From 10/1/1999 through 9/30/2000: $17,907,308,253.43
From 10/1/2000 through 9/30/2001: $133,285,202,313.20
From 10/1/2001 through 9/30/2002: $420,772,553,397.10
From 10/1/2002 through 9/30/2003: $554,995,097,146.46
From 10/1/2003 through 9/30/2004: $595,821,633,586.70
From 10/1/2004 through 9/30/2005: $553,656,965,393.18
From 10/1/2005 through 9/30/2006: $574,264,237,491.73

Now, who wants to show me where in there, anywhere, is a “balanced budget” or a “budget surplus”? How is red ink a balanced anything or a surplus something else? I know the myth of the balanced budget plays well. I know Newt and Clinton love to tell it. But it is still a myth. And when you tell this lie you are a liar plain and simple. You might as well be trying to court the Big Foot vote with something this transparently untrue.

[1] http://www.libertyreborn.com/2005/05/22/the-surplus-fallacy/
[2] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/dec/28/winning-our-future/ad-credits-newt-gingrich-balancing-budget/
[3] http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/
[4] http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt.htm

======================================================

J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn.

TEA Party Fight for America. . . Are We Prepared? - Wild Bill for America

2012-01-30T16:00:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Honor Killing Participants in Canada Convicted

2012-01-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

Family Convicted in Canada "Honor Murders"

A Canadian jury Sunday convicted three members of a family of Afghan immigrants of the "honor" murders of four female relatives whose bodies were found in an Ontario canal.

Mohammed Shafia, 58; his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 42; and their son, Hamed, 21, were found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Shafia's three teenage daughters and his first wife in his polygamous marriage. Sunday's verdicts followed a three-month trial, in which jurors heard wiretaps of Shafia referring to his daughters as "whores" and ranting about their behavior.

All three were sentenced to life in prison immediately after their convictions, with no chance of parole for 25 years.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Muslim Football Players Beat Christian Quarterback

2012-01-30T08:00:00.000-08:00

High school football players arrested for on-field assault

Police arrested four Star International Academy seniors Wednesday on aggravated assault charges stemming from an altercation in the team’s last game of the season.

The players — Mohamed Ahmed, Fanar Al-Alsady, Hadee Attia and Ali Bajjey, all age 17 — are accused of gang-beating Lutheran Westland’s quarterback as time expired in Lutheran’s 47-6 drubbing of Star on Oct. 21.

According to numerous witness statements gathered by police, Lutheran’s quarterback was set to take a knee to run out the clock. Before the snap, referees told both teams to refrain from contact, police said.

After the snap, however, the four arrested Star players burst through the line and allegedly manhandled Lutheran’s quarterback. Police said they ripped off his helmet, threw him to the ground and punched and kicked him repeatedly. The incident came to an end after coaches, players and refs stepped in and broke it up.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Hercules, California: Sexual Assault by Six Year Old on Playground

2012-01-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

Hercules Family Battles Sex Assault Claim Against 6-Year-Old

An East Bay dad claims a game of tag on the playground resulted in his 6-year-old son being accused of sexual assault – a decision he said was an overreaction by school officials.

The parent, who asked only to be identified as Oswin, said his son was accused of brushing his best friend’s leg or groin while the two were playing on the playground at Lupine Hills Elementary in Hercules two months ago.

Oswin said his child was kept in the principal’s office for two hours until he confessed. He was suspended, and a sexual battery charge was placed on his permanent school record. . .

It wasn't until the parents got a lawyer that the school backed off.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Twitter Censorship Plan Draws Worldwide Outrage

2012-01-29T23:49:00.000-08:00

Twitter's new censorship plan rouses global furor

Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Santorum's Three-year-old Daughter Hospitalized Saturday

2012-01-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

Once in a while politics take a break, and that was the case Sunday as rivals and partisans set down their talking points and instead offered prayers and well wishes to Rick Santorum's 3-year-old daughter, Bella, who was hospitalized Saturday.

Read more at Fox News

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Deadly Pileup on Florida Highway

2012-01-29T16:18:00.000-08:00

10 Killed in Florida Highway Pileup

At least 10 people are killed and at least 18 injured, according to Florida Highway Patrol, after a series of crashes along Florida's Interstate 75, leaving behind piles of twisted metal, smoking vehicles.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Green Technology Failure: Chevy Dealers Refuse Volts

2012-01-29T11:34:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

President Obama disagrees with the market forces, so to make sure his precious green technology moves forward, he has been trying to find ways to force the market to move in a green direction. His policies call for the auto industry to make cars with zero emissions. In his State of the Union speech he even said the auto industry is back in America. . . with cars even the dealers won't accept?

The internal combustion engine has advanced in many ways, and still remains the most efficient engine we have. Electric cars are a bust. They are inconvenient, expensive, and the technology is not refined enough, yet. Will we someday have vehicles that don't run on gasoline? If the market allows, yes. It is not up to government, it is up to the consumers.

This is nothing new. In the 1970s the liberal left demanded by law lower emissions and better gas mileage, but the only way the auto companies could comply was by downsizing cars. So instead of the big ol' boats on the roadways, we wound up with little shoeboxes that crumbled upon impact, and we wound up with more deaths in auto accidents because the lighter materials, and lighter vehicles, were no match for the force of a collision.

Did they realize their mistake and reverse the devastating laws? Of course not. They simply tried to fix the problem with more government control. . . a lower speed limit and a eventually mandatory seat belt laws.

Ahh, but now they want our older cars off the road again, and the ridiculous smog laws are not enough, so Obama and his gang of liberal idiots have decided it's time for government to take control again. . . whether you like it or not.

Damn the market, they figure they can force the system to move in their direction. After all, once they convince everybody that the man-made global warming lie is true, despite the evidence of manipulated data, and even as the temperatures drop, they think everyone will look back and be glad they were forced into inefficient, inconvenient cars by those benevolent dictators in Washington.

You know, like the Chevy Volt.

The problem is, nobody wants cars like the Chevy Volt. They are expensive, and are not selling. Market forces have refused the electric car to the point that even a number of Chevrolet dealers are turning them down because they can't sell them. GM is trying to get the dealers to take the cars, but the cars just aren't selling.

On top of the fact that the market is not interested, the investigations regarding the risk of fires in the car's battery pack have not been resolved yet either.

Does that mean we will never have electric cars, plug-in hybrids, or other cars like them? Not necessarily. As long as the government stays out of the market, the private sector may move in that direction if the consumers lead it in that direction. Innovation happens that way, not when ordered to by the government.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Some Chevy Dealers Spurn Volt Allocation - Auto News

Religion of Evolution versus The Facts

2012-01-29T06:30:00.000-08:00

THE RELIGION OF EVOLUTION VS. THE FACTS

It’s absolutely ridiculous that I would even have to take the time to expose the theory/religion of evolution (and theory it is), but when it affects the outcome of future generations, it must take precedence. Take a look with me at the absurdities of people who blindly follow its teaching.

It has been said, “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will the be philosophy of government in the next.” When people fall in line with the theory of evolution, and with those like Adolf Hitler who kill millions and millions of people because they weren’t quite as evolved, it’s not only terrible, but also very dangerous.

As a matter of fact, until 1962, there were only 2,000 to 3,000 words mentioning the theory/religion of evolution in school textbooks. Conveniently, in 1962 the Supreme Court ruled to take prayer out of schools, thus removing God (the Giver of law and Foundation of our constitutional republic) and ignoring the 97 percent of Americans who wanted to leave America’s Christian heritage alone. The outcome? America’s public schools exploded the discussion of evolution in textbooks from 3,000 words to 33,000-plus words.

The theory/religion of evolution teaches our kids a mindset that God does not exist (idolatry – the oldest sin in the Bible); that there are no moral absolutes; that some men are better than others; and that we evolved from monkeys. Then we wonder why, after teaching evolution in schools, America has an epidemic of school shootings, suicides, violence, rape and crime.

If you can convince the people that God does not exist, then the government becomes god. Now what you are seeing today is the modern American government falling in line with the same theory/religion: Away with God and onward with tyranny. How contradictory to our founders!

Finish Reading at World Net Daily

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Constitution Study Radio - Myth #13: Anchor Babies are American Citizens

2012-01-29T03:42:00.000-08:00

Constitution Study Radio - Myth #13: Anchor Babies

by Douglas V Gibbs
in Politics Conservative
Sun, Jan 29, 2012 06:00AM Pacific

Myth #13: Anchor Babies are American Citizens. Through the Constitution with Douglas V. Gibbs

Santorum Challenges Romney on Obamacare

2012-01-28T23:31:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

During last Thursday's CNN Debate, the last debate before Tuesday's Florida Primary, Santorum challenged Romney on Obamacare, not only because of the similarities between Romneycare and Obamacare, but because Santorum recognizes how much of a defining issue government run health care truly is. If the government is entangled in our health care system, it will give them the authority (they think) to dictate to us everything that has to do with our health. It will allow them to tell us what we can and can't do in relation to health because after all, they are flipping the bill. What that does is make Obamacare the most important issue in this race, when it comes to our Constitutional freedoms.

Mitt Romney, since his Massachusetts health care law has many similarities with the federal health care law, has responded by saying that all of this talk about health care is not worth getting angry about. Santorum, in the debate, begged to disagree, saying that it is worth getting angry about, and it is worth staying angry about. Santorum was right in the debate when he said, "We can't afford to give away this issue. We can't afford for the issue of Obamacare to be subordinated to anything else that's being discussed up there."

While Newt and Mitt hammer each other over how much money they make, what immoral things they've done, and who is or is not conservative, Santorum has remained unscathed. Sure, there have been attempts by the media to try to drum up things, but nobody believes them, or nobody cares.

In the debate, one thing is for sure. . . Santorum did the best job of nailing Mitt Romney on Romneycare in any of the debates. The Newt and Mitt back-and-forth personal-attack criticism is nothing when the issues are being talked about. That is what many of the voters are interested in. With a Marxist in the White House, the personal flaws of the candidates is the last thing the voters are worrying about.The people of this country are willing to overlook a few personal flaws to stop the destruction of this country.

Obamacare is the final straw in terms of regulations. Obamacare will allow the government into your home, giving them control over every decision you make. Once Obamacare is fully implemented, and the liberal left gets the courts to back it, the liberals will be done shredding the Constitution. They will have completed their task to fundamentally transform this nation into a place where there is neither freedom or liberty. This issue is that crucial. Santorum was right. We cannot afford to give away this issue.

That said, considering that Romney is defending Romneycare, and Newt Gingrich has supported in the past an insurance mandate as stated in Obamacare, Santorum may be the only candidate who is truly convincing when he says he will get rid of Obamacare. He is not like the establishment Republicans who say things like, "Well, there are some things we might want to keep," or "Yeah, it may be big government, but we can do it better." Santorum says no, it must be repealed.

Obamacare also teaches dependency, instead of individualism and self-reliance. Seriously. Think about it, one of the provisions allows you to keep your kids on your insurance policy until they are 26. My son is 26, is married, and has two kids. If he had an excuse to stay, like for health insurance, he would have never left. He'd be still depending on his parents instead of getting out there and getting his own place, and raising two beautiful children. The best way to get kids out of the house is to say, "Hey, you can't be on my policy anymore, I guess you need a job so that you can have your own policy."

Boom, they are making money, and then they are out of the house taking care of themselves.

That is the kind of thing that makes this nation exceptional, not giving kids an excuse not to move out, or handing to people government handouts.

In the end, Santorum had it right. He laid it out perfect. In the debate he said, "Governor Romney was the author of Romneycare, which is a top-down, government-run health care system, which, I read an article today, has 15 different items directly in common with Obamacare. Everything from the increase in the Medicaid program, not just that government is gonna mandate you buy something as a condition of breathing, mandate that you buy an insurance policy. Something that Governor Romney agreed to at the state level. Something that Congressman Gingrich for 20 years advocated that the federal government can force each and every person to enter into a private contract. Something that everyone now, at least up on this stage, says is radically unconstitutional, Congressman Gingrich supported for 20 years. This is the top-down model that both of these gentlemen say they're now against, but they've been for, and this does not provide the contrast we need with Barack Obama if we're gonna take on that most important issue. We cannot give the issue of health care away in this election. It is too foundational for us to win this election."

We cannot give away this issue in this election. We cannot give the issue of health care away. Santorum is so right.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Understanding the States' Right of Nullification: Thomas Jefferson's Draft of the Kentucky Resolution

2012-01-28T19:26:00.000-08:00

From Princeton Website:

I. Jefferson’s Draft

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 30: 1 January 1798 to 31 January 1799
(Princeton University Press, 2003), 536-43

Return to Editorial Note

[before 4 Oct. 1798]

1. Resolved that the several states composing the US. of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style & title of a Constitution for the US. and of Amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each state to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General government assumes undelegated powers, it’s acts are unauthoritative, void, & of no force.

that to this compact each state acceded as a state, and is an integral party, it’s co-states forming, as to itself, the other party.[1]

that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made it’s discretion, & not the constitution the measure of it’s powers: but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions, as of the mode & measure of redress.[2]

2. Resolved that, the Constitution of the US. having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfieting the securities & current coin of the US. piracies & felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, & no other crimes whatsoever, and it being true as a general principle, and one of the Amendments to the constitution having also declared, that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,’ therefore, the act of Congress passed on the 14th day of July 1798. and intituled ‘an Act in addition to the act intituled an Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the US.’ as also the act passed by them on the day of June 1798. intituled ‘an Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the US.’ [and all other their acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution][3] are altogether void and of no force, and that the power to create, define, & punish such other crimes is reserved, and of right appurtains solely and exclusively to the respective states, each within it’s own territory.[4]

3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed; and thus also they guarded against all abridgement by the US. of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, & retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this state, by a law passed on the general demand of it’s citizens, had already protected them, from all human restraint or interference: And that in addition to this general principle & express declaration, another & more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the constitution which expressly declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press,’ thereby guarding in the same sentence & under the same words the freedom of religion, of speech & of the press. insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that [5] libels, falsehood and defamation equally with heresy & false religion are witheld from the cognisance of federal tribunals; that therefore the act of the Congress of the US. passed on the 14th. day of July 1798. intituled ‘an act in addition to the act intituled an act for the punishment of certain crimes against the US.’ which does abridge the freedom of the press is not law but is altogether void and of no force.[6]

4. Resolved that ALIEN-friends are under the jurisdiction and protection [7] of the laws of the state wherein they are; that no power over them has been delegated to the US. nor prohibited to the individual states distinct from their power over citizens: and it being true as a general principle, and one of the Amendments to the constitution having also declared, that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,’ the act of the Congress of the US. passed on the day of July 1798. intituled ‘an Act concerning Aliens’ which assumes powers over Alien-friends not delegated by the constitution is not law, but is altogether void & of no force.[8]

5. Resolved that in addition to the general principle, as well as the express declaration, that powers not delegated are reserved, another and more special provision, inserted in the constitution from abundant caution, has declared that ‘the migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808,’ that this commonwealth does admit the migration of Alien-friends, described as the subject of the said act concerning aliens; that a provision against prohibiting their migration, is a provision against all acts equivalent thereto, or it would be nugatory; that to remove them when migrated is equivalent to a prohibition of their migration, and is therefore contrary to the said provision of the constitution, and void.[9]

6. Resolved that the imprisonment of a person under the protection of the laws of this commonwealth on his failure to obey the simple order of the President to depart out of the US. as is undertaken by the said act intituled ‘an act concerning Aliens’ is contrary to the constitution, one Amendment to which has provided that ‘no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law.’ and that another having provided that ‘in all criminal [10]prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a public trial, by an impartial jury, to be informed of the nature & cause of the accusation to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, & to have the assistance of counsel for his defence’ the same act undertaking to authorize the President to remove a person out of the US. who is under the protection of the law, on his own suspicion, without accusation, without jury, without public trial, without confrontation of the witnesses against him, without hearing witnesses in his favor, without defence, without counsel, is contrary to these provisions also of the constitution, is therefore not law, but utterly void & of no force.

that transferring the power of judging any person who is under the protection of the law, from the courts to the President of the US. as is undertaken by the same act concerning Aliens, is against the article of the constitution which provides that ‘the judicial power of the US. shall be vested in courts the judges of which shall hold their offices during good behavior,’ & that the sd act is void for that reason also. and it is further to be noted that this transfer of judiciary power is to that magistrate of the general government who already possesses all the Executive, and a negative on all the Legislative powers.[11]

7. Resolved that the construction applied by the general government, (as is evidenced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the constitution of the US. which delegate to Congress a power ‘to lay & collect taxes, duties, imposts, & excises, to pay the debts & provide for the common defence & general welfare of the US.’ and ‘to make all laws which shall be necessary & proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the constitution in the government of the US. or in any department or officer thereof,’ goes to the destruction of all the limits prescribed to their power by the constitution; that words meant by that instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument: that the proceedings of the general government under colour of these articles, will be a fit & necessary subject of revisal & correction at a time of greater tranquility [12]while those specified in the preceding resolutions, call for immediate redress.

8. Resolved that a committee of conference & correspondence be appointed, who shall have in charge to communicate the preceding resolutions to the legislatures of the several states, to assure them that this commonwealth continues in the same esteem for their friendship & union which it has manifested from that moment at which a common danger first suggested a common union: that it considers union, for specified national purposes, and particularly for those specified in their late federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all the states: that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent & meaning in which it was understood & acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for it’s preservation: that it does also believe that to take from the states all the powers of self-government, & transfer them to a general & consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations & reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these states: and that therefore this commonwealth is determined, as it doubts not it’s co-states are, to submit to undelegated & consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse [13] of the delegated powers, the members of the [14] general government being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but where powers are assumed which have not been delegated a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every state has a natural right, in cases not within the compact [casus non foederis][15] to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them: that nevertheless this commonwealth, from motives of regard & respect for it’s co-states has wished to communicate with them on the subject; that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, & solely authorised to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it; Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, & subject, as to it’s assumptions of power, to the final judgment of those by whom & for whose use itself [16] and it’s powers were all created and modified: that if those acts before specified should stand,[17] these conclusions would flow from them; that the General government may place any act they think proper on the list of crimes, and punish it themselves, whether enumerated, or not enumerated by the constitution as cognisable by them; that they may transfer it’s cognisance to the President, or any other person, who may himself be the accuser, counsel, judge & jury, whosesuspicions may be the evidence, his order the sentence, his officer the executioner, & his breast the sole record of the transaction: that a very numerous & valuable description of the inhabitants of these states being, by this precedent reduced as Outlaws [18] to the absolute dominion of one man, and the barrier of the constitution thus swept away for us all, no rampart now remains against the passions and the power [19] of a majority in Congress, to protect from a like exportation or other more grievous punishment, the Minority of the same body, the legislatures, judges, governors, & counsellors [20] of the states, nor their other peaceable inhabitants, who may venture to reclaim the constitutional rights and liberties of the states and people, or who for other causes, good or bad, may be obnoxious to the views, or marked by the suspicions of the President, or be thought dangerous to his or their elections or other interests public or personal: that the friendless alien has indeed been selected as the safest subject of a first experiment; but the citizen will soon follow, or rather has already followed; for already has a Sedition act marked him as it’s prey: that these & successive acts of the same character, unless arrested at the threshold necessarily drive these states into revolution and blood, and will furnish new calumnies against republican government, and new pretexts for those who wish it to be believed that man cannot be governed but by a rod of iron: that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is every where the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy and not in confidence; it is jealousy & not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our constitution has accordingly [21] fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go: and let the honest advocate of confidence read the Alien & Sedition acts, and say if the constitution has not been wise in fixing limits to the government it created, and whether we should be wise in destroying those limits? let him say what the government is, if it be not a tyranny, which the men of our choice have conferred on the President, and the President of our choice has assented to and accepted over the friendly strangers to whom the mild spirit of our country & it’s laws had pledged hospitality & protection: that the men of our choice have more respected the bare suspicions of the President, than the solid rights of innocence, the claims of justification,[22] the sacred force of truth, and the forms & substance of law & justice: in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution:[23] that this commonwealth does therefore call on it’s co-states for an expression of their sentiments on the acts concerning aliens and for the punishment of certain crimes, herein before specified, plainly declaring whether these acts are, or are not, authorised by the federal compact? and it doubts not that their sense will be so enounced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government whether general or particular; & that the rights & liberties of their co-states will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked in a common bottom with their own:[24] that they will concur with this comm. in [25] considering the said acts as so palpably against the constn as to amount to an undisguised declarn that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the genl. govm’t, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these states of all powers whatsoever, that they will view this as seizing the rights of the states & consolidating them in the hands of the genl govm’t with a power assumed [26] to bind the states (not merely in the cases made federal, but) in all cases whatsoever, by laws made not with their consent, but by others against their consent; that this would be to surrender [27] the form of govmt we have chosen, & to live under one deriving it’s powers from it’s own will & not from our authority, and that the costates, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void & of no force & will each take measures of it’s own for providing that neither these acts nor any others of the genl. government not plainly & intentionally authorised [28] by the constn shall be exercised within their respective territories.

9. That the said committee be authorised to communicate, by writing or personal conferences, at any times or places whatever, with any person or persons who may be appointed by any one or more of the co-states to correspond or confer with them; & that they lay their proceedings before the next session of assembly:[29] that the members of the said committee, while acting within the state, have the same allowance as the members of the General assembly, and while acting without the commonwealth, the same as members of Congress: and that the Treasurer be authorised, on warrants from the Governor, to advance them monies on account for the said services.

Dft (DLC: TJ Papers, 93:16003, 16003-a, 16004); undated, but antecedent to Document II; entirely in TJ’s hand, the first, second, and fourth through seventh resolutions written on both sides of one narrow sheet, the eighth resolution (as originally composed) and the ninth on a similar sheet; those two sheets were a single leaf when TJ composed the sixth resolution; three additional smaller pieces (two of which have been attached to the primary sheets) hold what became the third resolution and substantial alterations to the eighth (see notes 6, 16, and 24below); one word in TJ’s hand printing shown in small capitals; TJ’s square brackets in text identified in notes 3,15, and 24 below; TJ placed all the digits numbering the resolutions either in the margins or within paragraph indentations, which implies that he originally wrote the resolutions before deciding to number them; the number of one resolution may have been changed (see note 4 below); in TJ’s original sequence the sixth resolution followed the seventh and he subsequently transposed them, numbering them after making that decision (notes 9 and 11).

[1]In the margin, keyed for insertion between this and the next clause, TJ wrote and canceled: “That the constitutional form of action for this commonwealth as a party with respect to any other party is by it’s organised powers & not by it’s citizens in a body.”

[2]Following this paragraph TJ wrote and subsequently struck through: “2. Resolved that, one of the Amendments to the Constitution having declared that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,’ the Act of the Congress of the US. passed on the 14th. day of July 1798. intituled ‘An act in addition to the act intituled an Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the US.’ which does abridge the freedom of speech & of the press, is not law, but is altogether void and of no force.” Vertically in the margin alongside this resolution he wrote “Sedition law,” changing the second word to “Act.”

[3]TJ’s brackets.

[4]The number of this resolution was likely a “3” originally, reworked to “2.” Vertically in the margin alongside this resolution TJ wrote “Sedition law, & Counterfeits of the bank,” again changing “law” to “Act.”

[5]Word interlined. Here TJ first wrote “placing” and then substituted “witholding,” which he also canceled.

[6]TJ wrote this resolution on a separate piece that has been affixed at one end to the sheet with the preceding resolutions.

[7]Preceding two words interlined.

[8]TJ wrote “Alien<-law> act” vertically in the margin alongside this resolution.

[9]TJ wrote “Alien act” vertically in the margin alongside this resolution. He inserted an arrow and the numeral “6.” between this resolution and the seventh, which follows next on the page, to indicate the placement of the sixth resolution.

[10]Here TJ canceled “[cases].”

[11]Although TJ finally made this the sixth resolution it follows the one he labeled number 7. He numbered the sixth and seventh resolutions after determining their final sequence.

[12]TJ originally wrote the preceding six words following “under colour of these articles” earlier in the sentence, then transposed the phrase to this location.

[13]TJ originally wrote “that in abuses.” Preceding this phrase he canceled “that it ought not.”

[14]Three words interlined.

[15]TJ’s brackets.

[16]The long passage that begins after this word and runs through “bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution” (see note 23 below) is an insertion that TJ wrote on both sides of a separate sheet. He originally wrote here “& it’s powers were all created & modified: that this commonwealth does therefore call,” probably continuing to the conclusion of the eighth resolution as he first composed it. In his original text he interlined “that if the acts should stand &c” following the word “modified” to key the location of the long insertion.

[17]TJ first wrote “those acts should stand” before altering the clause to read as above.

[18]Two words interlined.

[19]TJ first wrote “the will and the passions” before altering the phrase to read as above.

[20]Word and ampersand interlined.

[21]TJ here canceled “set.”

[22]Above this word TJ interlined but canceled “exculpation.”

[23]The long insertion ends here, TJ placing a line of flourishes and then the words “that this” to confirm the resumption of his original text.

[24]Remainder of resolution written on a small sheet that has been attached to the main page and begins with a canceled repetition of the phrase, “in a common bottom with their own.” This insertion is in substitution for the following paragraph, which TJ originally wrote as part of the eighth resolution but then canceled:

“But that however confident at other times this commonwealth would have been in the deliberate judgment of the co-states, and that but one opinion would be entertained on the unjustifiable character of the acts herein specified, yet it cannot be insensible that circumstances do exist, & that passions are at this time afloat which may give a biass to the judgment to be pronounced on this subject, that times of passion are peculiarly those when precedents of wrong are yielded to with the least caution, when encroachments of power are most usually made & principles are least watched. that whether the coincidence of the occasion & the encroachment in the present case, has been from accident or design, the right of the commonwealth to the government of itself in cases not parted with, is too vitally important to be yielded from temporary or secondary considerations: that a fixed determination therefore to retain it requires us in candor & without reserve to declare, & to warn our co-states that considering the said acts to be so palpably against the constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the general government, but that it is to proceed in the exercise over these states of any & all powers whatever, considering this as seizing the rights of the states & consolidating them in hands of the general government, with power to bind the states (not merely in the cases made federal [casus federis] but) in all cases whatsoever, by laws not made with their consent, but by other states against their consent; considering all other consequences as nothing in comparison with that of yielding the form of government we have chosen, & of living under one deriving it’s powers from it’s own will and not from our authority, this commonwealth, as an integral party, does in that case protest against such opinions & exercises of undelegated & unauthorised power, and does declare that, recurring to it’s natural right of judging & acting for itself, it will be constrained to take care of itself, & to provide by measures of it’s own, that no power not plainly & intentionally delegated by the constitution to the general government, shall be exercised within the territory of this commonwealth.” Immediately following this passage, which TJ ended with a colon, is the ninth resolution. The brackets around “casus federis” are TJ’s, the word “vitally” in the phrase “too vitally important” is an interlineation, and he considered using “measuring” instead of “deriving” in the phrase, “under one deriving it’s powers.”

[25]Preceding four words and abbreviation interlined.

[26]Word interlined.

[27]Word interlined in place of “yield.”

[28]Word interlined in place of “delegated.”

[29]TJ drew an incomplete box around the remainder of the resolution.

Founding Truth of the U.S. Constitution with Douglas V. Gibbs and Loki

2012-01-28T15:57:00.000-08:00

Founding Truth of the U.S. Constitution

by HOV Radio
in Politics Conservative
Sat, Jan 28, 2012 05:00PM Pacific

What is our government doing, to the American people, that is not following the Constitution? Listen here and find out!

Constitution Corner Joins Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs

2012-01-28T12:53:00.000-08:00

Today, Listen to Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs at 2:00 pm Pacific on AM 1050 in Southern California, or Online at KCAAradio.com. Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs is more than just a radio show. . . it has become a multi-media experience including U-Stream live video, a better interactive chat room, the ability to listen by mobile device, and coming soon the shows will also be available on YouTube.

A new segment, inspired by the Constitution Classes I teach in Temecula and Murrieta, will be added to today's program. Constitution Corner will be a ten to fifteen minute segment each week that will teach you the Constitution. Tune in each Saturday as we go through the Constitution. This segment will air after the first break.

During the beginning of the program we will also address various local and national issues, and discuss the Book of the Week brought to us by Prying1Books.

During the second half hour of the program JASmius will join me to go over the. . .

5 Big Stories of the Week, January 28, 2012

Honorable Mention: Death of Joe Paterno

Honorable Mention: Gabrielle Giffords Resignation

5. Obama Fails to Show up to Eligibility Trial

4. Jan Brewer and Obama Confrontation on Airport Tarmac

3. Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty

2. State of the Union Speech

Washington Post Fact Check

Haven't We Heard This Before?

State of the Union Registers at the 8th Grade Reading Level: Third Lowest Score of any State of the Union address since 1934

Associated Press Fact Check

1. The GOP Race: Gingrich wins big in South Carolina, Florida Coming on Tuesday With Romney Leading

South Carolina Primary Results

Romney Leads in Florida

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

Nuts and Nuggets

Nut: Obama’s State of the Union Speech: Lies, and Contradictions

Washington Post Fact Check

Haven't We Heard This Before?

State of the Union Registers at the 8th Grade Reading Level: Third Lowest Score of any State of the Union address since 1934

Associated Press Fact Check

Nugget: Douglas V. Gibbs when discussing the attacks against the GOP Candidates by Republicans. . .

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

Catch the radio program live at KCAAradio.com.

This program also replays on KCXL (Tuesdays, 10:00 am), and WHTH (currently exact times not yet set).

Listen to the podcast later at KCAA.

Pre-Game Show for Constitution Radio

2012-01-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

American Daily Review

by ADR Radio
in Politics Conservative
Sat, Jan 28, 2012 12:00PM Pacific

Pre-game show for Constitution Speaker Radio on KCAA 1050 AM. Join Blog Talk Radio titans Douglas V. Gibbs of Political Pistachio and JASmius of Hard Starboard Radio Network.

Another Fact-Check Article Regarding Obama's State of the Union 2012

2012-01-28T09:29:00.001-08:00

MyWayNews

--Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Washington Post Decent Article About Fact-Checking 2012 State of the Union speech

2012-01-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

Fact-checking the 2012 State of the Union speech

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Supreme Court Tells Obama to stay out of Lutheran Church Business

2012-01-28T05:50:00.000-08:00

Supreme Court delivers a knockout punch to the White House

Wednesday the United States Supreme Court delivered a knockout blow to the White House in the cause of religious liberty.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a unanimous court swatted away the government’s claim that the Lutheran Church did not have the right to fire a “minister of religion” who, after six years of Lutheran religious training had been commissioned as a minister, upon election by her congregation.

The fired minister -- who also taught secular subjects -- claimed discrimination in employment. The Obama administration, always looking for opportunities to undermine the bedrock of First Amendment religious liberty, eagerly agreed.

There was just one big problem standing in the way of the government's plan: the U.S. Constitution. For a long time American courts have recognized the existence of a "ministerial exemption" which keeps government’s hands off the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers or clergy.

Here, in this case, the Department of Justice had the nerve to not only challenge the exemption’s application but also its very existence.

But, Chief Justice Roberts pushed back hard, telling the government essentially to butt out:

Read more at Fox News

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Demi Moore Searching and Smoking

2012-01-28T04:00:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

These people are so unhappy. Her younger man upped and left, and now she's smoking incense, or something like that. Then her friend called 911 on her cell and couldn't even answer the questions asked by the dispatchers.

Demi Moore is a 49 year old actress that decided it was time to smoke something new, and it rendered her semi-conscious.

Searching.

Help arrived, and Demi Moore is physically fine.

But she is still searching.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Demi Moore "smoked something" before convulsions: 911 tape - Yahoo News/Reuters

Hugo Chavez's Daughter Flashes Greenbacks

2012-01-28T02:00:00.000-08:00

Daddy won't be pleased... Hugo Chávez's daughter sparks outrage in Venezuela after posting picture with U.S. dollar bills

For most Venezuelans, obtaining U.S. dollars in a tightly regulated economy is a nightmare.But not for President Hugo Chavez’s 14-year-old daughter, Rosines, who posted a picture of herself peering out from behind a wad of greenbacks.

The picture, posted on Instagram, a free photo-sharing app, triggered controversy in Venezuela this week after posting a picture of herself flaunting a fistful of dollars.

Read more at Daily Mail

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty

2012-01-27T23:56:00.000-08:00

Months before the debate about Internet censorship raged as SOPA and PIPA dominated the concerns of web users, President Obama signed an international treaty that would allow companies in China or any other country in the world to demand ISPs remove web content in the US with no legal oversight whatsoever.

Read More at InfoWars

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Ed Kock to New York Times on Call for the Murder of Jews

2012-01-27T19:45:00.000-08:00

To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news

By Ed Koch

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In the Times of January 24 is an article headlined, "2 Palestinian Legislators Are Arrested in East Jerusalem Protest." The article reported, "Israel arrested two Palestinian legislators affiliated with Hamas as they staged a protest in the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in East Jerusalem on Monday, an act criticized by the Palestinian leadership as a blow to the first direct meetings between the Israeli and Palestinian sides in more than a year now underway in Jordan."

Actually there were three men protesting: Muhammad Totah, a member of the Palestinian legislative council, Khaled Abu Arafeh, a former minister, and Ahmed Attoun, a Hamas legislator. The Times reported, "A police spokesman, Mickey Rosenfeld, said that the two legislators arrested were suspected of carrying out Hamas activities in Jerusalem. The Islamic militant group is considered an illegal organization by Israel."

As a result of the arrests, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian legislator, said in a statement that the detention of Mr. Totah and Mr. Abu Arafeh 24 hours later was a "flagrant act of aggression." Hamas is a terrorist organization designated as such not only by Israel, but by the Quartet — the U.S., European Union, Russia and the U.N.

Obama Fails to show up to Eligibility Trial in Georgia

2012-01-27T15:39:00.000-08:00

WHAT HAPPENED AT OBAMA-NO-SHOW TRIAL

Georgia citizens today delivered sworn testimony to a court that Barack Obama is slam-dunk disqualified from having his name on the 2012 presidential ballot in the state, because his father never was a U.S. citizen, which prevents him from qualifying as a “natural-born citizen” as the U.S. Constitution requires for a president.

The historic hearing was the first time that a court has accepted arguments on the merits of the controversy over Obama’s status. His critics say he never met the constitutional requirements to occupy the Oval Office, and the states and Congress failed in their obligations to make sure only a qualified president is inaugurated. His supporters, meanwhile, argue he won the 2008 election and therefore was “vetted” by America.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

John Adams: Learning from History

2012-01-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

"Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors." --John Adams, letter to the young men of the Philadelphia, 1798

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Jan Brewer and Obama Confrontation on Airport Tarmac

2012-01-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

AZ Governor Brewer Gives Obama the (Index) Finger

In a state where illegal immigration runs rampant, Mexican drug dealers cross into U.S. land, and the federal government continually tries to crack down on the state's efforts to enforce immigration laws, it's no wonder that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has a hard time with Barack Obama. Those feelings were on full display when Obama traveled to Arizona and was greeted on the tarmac by Brewer. Apparently our commander-in-chief is a little thin skinned.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

No Name Calling Allowed in Massachusetts

2012-01-27T03:21:00.000-08:00

Official “No Name-Calling Day” in Massachusetts?

What [CENSORED] came up with that brilliant idea?

Massachusetts politicians, of course. In accordance with the ridiculous and over-reaching 2010 “anti-bullying” law, Gov. Deval Patrick has declared today “No Name-Calling Day” in schools, urging students to wear black as a sign of their commitment to “Black Out Bullying.”

Does anyone really believe a politician can stop school kids from calling each other [EDITED]? Or [EDITED] or even [CURRENTLY BEING INVESTIGATED AS A HATE CRIME]?

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama Lied About 3 Million Jobs

2012-01-26T23:13:00.000-08:00

ALG: Obama Claim of 3 Million Jobs Created in 22 Months a Lie

Jan. 26, 2012, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today in a statement dismissed Barack Obama's State of the Union claim that "[i]n the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs," citing data from the government's own Bureau of Labor Statistics:

"The Obama Administration is entitled to its own opinion, but not its own facts. Since February 2010, when Obama starts measuring his claim that 3 million jobs were created, the amount of people employed has only increased from 138.66 million to 140.79 million, a net increase of only 2.13 million. While that sounds nice, that is a pace of just 96,000 a month, which does not even keep up with the growth of the population, let alone replace the 8 million jobs that were lost in the recession.

"That means, when population growth and the loss of 4 million working age adults from the labor force who have simply stopped looking for work are fully taken into account, the unemployment situation has not improved at all.

"We have an effective unemployment rate of 11 percent, and an underemployed rate of 17 percent. There are over 27 million working age adults who still cannot find full-time work, no thanks to Obama's 'stimulus' policies. To lie about the horrific state of our economy and the plight of 27 million Americans who cannot find work is a crime against humanity.

"It is time for new leadership who will honestly evaluate the situation, and prescribe the pro-growth policies to turn the Ship of State around from sinking into the Abyss."

Attachments:

Number of Persons Employed, Seasonally Adjusted, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Jan. 26, 2012 at www.getliberty.org/files/BLSEmployed2001-2011.xls .

"Obama's Lost Labor Force," Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson, Jan. 6, 2012 athttp://netrightdaily.com/2012/01/obamas-lost-labor-force/ .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Rush Limbaugh Callers Defend Newt Gingrich

2012-01-26T18:20:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Rush Limbaugh won't endorse a candidate, speaks favorably of them when they articulate conservatism, and talks about their failings when those faults murk their way to the surface. He is careful to only report as objectively as he can, though he will say things like, "I think Santorum would fight for conservative values."

Nonetheless, callers will still call him to defend their favorite candidates against him, telling Rush he's speaking too favorably of Newt, or Santorum, and one today even accused him of speaking favorably about socialist Romney (though aside from defending Romney's capitalism he has done nothing of the sort).

Today, Rush Limbaugh recognized that there is a coordinated attack going on that is obviously designed to take Newt out before the Florida primary. Rush indicated he didn't know really where this attack was coming from, but it seems to me to be a combined effort by the liberal media and establishment republicans.

Limbaugh was also questioning some sound bites of Newt from 1988 when he seemed to be saying that the era of Reagan was over, and if Bush 41 wanted to get elected he would not run on Reagan's policies. Rush said he didn't remember anything of the sort back then.

Has Newt Gingrich acted less than conservative in the past?

Absolutely, but perhaps not in that case.

Blogger, Dan Riehl, says the comments by Newt Gingrich in 1988 is taken out of context, and one must listen to the whole thing to understand what he was saying.

As expected, the callers that hold Gingrich's banner began to call in, but I thought two of the arguments by the callers deserves consideration.

One caller said that Washington hates Newt, and Washington is the problem. . . which makes Newt even more appealing!

The other said that Newt's association with the establishment decades ago makes sense. To become Speaker, or have any chance of any advancement in the party, he had to play along with the establishment. He had to play their game to get on the inside, and inject conservatism into the Republican Party again. But, they got rid of him in 1998 once they realized they had been duped. Notice it is mainly party hacks that are attacking Newt's conservatism.

As I have said before, Newt has a history of putting party before principles, so I often question his conservatism. However, he has stated that in his past he has made a number of mistakes in both his political and personal life, and he has put it all in the Lord's Hands. He has changed, and grown from his mistakes, he has told us. If we can take him at his word, then he's a good candidate. If he's lying, we are being duped.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

The thing is, Newt is articulating conservatism quite well right now, and if he continues to do so, he may very well win the nomination, and the general election. But, Gingrich can be unpredictable, and say some wild and crazy things that makes you scratch your head (Lunar colonies, anyone?). We will have to wait and see how this all shakes out.

But amid all of this finger pointing at Gingrich, and even the other candidates, let me remind you that a raging Marxist is in the White House, and if he gets re-elected, there is no telling what the lame duck president would do. Without worrying about re-election, he may finish his task of destroying the Constitution, capitalism, and this country as founded.

Quarreling over the GOP candidates like this, as Obama destroys the country, is like yelling at the dog for pooping on the carpet as the house burns down.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Coordinated Avalanche Against Newt Doesn't Match My Memory of Reagan Years - Rush Limbaugh

Video of Newt Bashing Reagan is Bogus - Riehl World View

Newt's Supporters Aren't Swayed - Rush Limbaugh

Voters See Gingrich Fighting for an Ideal and Romney Fighting to Get Elected - Rush Limbaugh

Caller Accuses Host of Backing "Socialist" Romney - Rush Limbaugh

To the Moon, Callista! Newt Gingrich Promises Lunar Colony by 2020 - The Atlantic

Temecula Constitution Class: Authorities Granted, and Not Granted

2012-01-26T15:43:00.000-08:00

Article I, Sections 7 through 10 Tonight. Join us at 6:00 pm in Temecula at Faith Armory.

As covered when we studied Article I, Section 1, all legislative powers belong to the Legislative Branch. According to Article I, Section 7, Clause 2, all bills must be approved by both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate before they can be presented to the President for signature. Article I, Section 7, Clause 1 indicates that all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.

The structure for making law was established by the Founding Fathers in the way that it was in order to ensure that all parts of the system had a voice in the approval, or disapproval, of the law. The people through their representatives in the House of Representatives voted their approval or disapproval of the bill, the States did the same through their voice in the United States Senate, and the federal government’s voice through the executive was the final approval. If the executive did not like the proposed law, he could veto it. However, all did not stop there. If Congress felt strongly enough about the bill, and had enough votes, they could override the veto with two-thirds vote in each House and make the bill a law without the signature of approval from the President.

In 1913, the 17th Amendment changed the process in which United States Senators are chosen. Originally, the State Legislatures appointed the U.S. Senators, making the U.S. Senate quite literally the voice of the States. The Senators at that time voted with the interests of the States, and more specifically with the intent of protecting their State’s sovereignty, in mind. With the House of Representatives acting as the voice of the people, and the Senate acting as the voice of the States, the dynamics of making law was quite different from what it is today.

The process of making a law as originally intended ensured that the people, the States, and the federal government, all each had the opportunity to approve or disapprove the piece of legislation. If either the people or the States did not like the bill, its journey to become a law stopped. If the federal government, via the President, did not like the bill, he could veto the bill. The veto by the President in turn could be overturned with a two thirds vote from each house of Congress. The reason for this system was for the purpose of checks and balances, and to keep the States involved in monitoring the federal government through advise and consent authorities. This gave the people through the House of Representatives, and the States through the U.S. Senate, the ability to check each other, and the ability of them together to check the federal government. The people and the States together, if in agreement, served as a united check against the federal government, or more specifically in the case of making law, the executive branch.

to be continued in class. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

The Danger of Central Governments Lies In Human Nature

2012-01-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." --James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1829

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Our Children, and the History of America

2012-01-26T06:59:00.000-08:00

"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country." --Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788

Unfortunately, in the public school system our children are being taught revisionist history at the hands of the liberal left. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Herman Cain Tea Party Response to State of the Union Speech

2012-01-26T02:45:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Gabrielle Giffords Resignation, Standing Ovation From Colleagues

2012-01-25T23:02:00.000-08:00

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has resigned from the House with a standing ovation from her colleagues, more than a year after she was gravely wounded by a would-be assassin.

The Arizona congresswoman formally resigned after a series of tributes from her colleagues in both parties. She’s stepping down to focus on her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head.

As Giffords sat in the chamber’s front row, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle praised her dignity, grace and perseverance

The Blaze

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Complaining about the flaws of the GOP Candidates

2012-01-25T17:53:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

A number of so-called conservatives (more often than not they turn out to be libertarian Ron Paul supporters that would even make the anti-federalists blush) have been Emailing me repeatedly hammering me for saying positive things about Newt Gingrich on my radio program and on this website, hammering me for defending the one thing that isn't moderate about Romney (capitalism), and they are even willing to call Santorum a big government guy. They say that they won't vote for any of these candidates because they aren't perfect in every way.

Yet, these same people argue that Obama and his democrat cronies are destroying this nation with socialist policies.

Complaining about the flaws of the GOP candidates as Obama uses Marxism to destroy this nation is like complaining the dog that is not house broken snuck in through the kitchen door while the house is burning down.

At this point I would take Daffy Duck over the Marxist in the White House. And the only candidate that Obama may be able to beat in the general election would be Ron Paul, and perhaps Romney. Newt and Santorum, if they articulated conservatism in a manner similar to how Newt has been of late, would win in a landslide.

The more conservatism, the greater the margin of victory.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Wild Bill for America: Obama the Racist President

2012-01-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Man's Best Friend

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama's Last State of the Union Speech

2012-01-25T00:03:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

I sat and listened to Obama's State of the Union speech tonight.

My first thought after he was done was, "Man, this guy is crafty."

Did he gives us optimism? Or did he reveal more statism?

Obama, during the speech, tried to act like he was sticking it to the Congress, that they were at fault whenever nothing got done, and when things did get done it was because of his executive brilliance.

Clever, and crafty, indeed.

Boehner said that Obama is acting as if this is year one, rather than year four, promising what he promised before, when he promised these things were going to be done over the last few years.

As Obama entered the assembly, the applause was splattered, but the democrats let out a cheer. He hugged and kissed and jived like the narcissist he is, and held his nose in the air most of the time as he worked his way in.

I saw an "Obama 2012" bumper sticker today, and was surprised there was anyone outside the democrat establishment that even still likes the massive failure of a President.

As Obama shook the hands of the Supreme Court justices, it brought back memories of a couple years ago when the man called out the court. Not all of the justices were there, but I thought Kagan was going to burst into flames with excitement.

A much deserved cheer rang out when Obama hugged Arizona Representative Gabby Giffords. It was great to see her there, and smiling. Tomorrow is her last official day in Congress, on which she will tender he resignation. Her presence was the highlight of this event. She still has a long way to go, but her determination is an inspiration to us all.

Obama said thank you after Boehner introduced him, and the applause rang out, and you could see in his eyes he was eating it up as usual.

Obama began the State of the Union speech talking about how last month he was at Andrews Air Force Base to welcome home the last of the troops from Iraq. He spoke of how great the war effort was (you know, the war effort he spoke out against before he was elected), but also how great it was to have the troops home - which he of course took full credit for and failed to mention he had used Bush's timeline. He spoke as if he was the man behind the successes of Iraq. He was right, however, when he said it is the sacrifices of those men and women that makes this a safer world.

Obama then headed straight for the one wartime accomplishment he has that he plans to use until the cows come home: the capture of Osama bin Laden. Of it, he said, "For first time in two decades Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this nation." Of course the democrats cheered and stood for that one.

The President then told us about all of the al Queda leaders that have been getting killed (surely congratulating himself for it), and that the Taliban's momentum has been broken (the same Taliban his Vice President said is not our enemy). Obama then talked favorably of the teamwork of America's armed forces, and how our military exceeds expectations. The applause was long, and it should be. The military is one of the few things the federal government does successfully, and constitutionally.

He said of the military, "They focus on the mission at hand . . . imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example."

Obama continued by asking us to imagine an America where we lead in education, manufacturing, and where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded. We can do this, because we have done it before.

Hardly the words of a raging Marxist liberal. In other words, I don't believe him to be genuine in that part of his speech.

Barry then launched into praises of the WWII generation, saying that his grandfather was a veteran of Patton's army (is this the same grandfather he once said liberated Auschwitz, of which the Americans did not?), and then he tried to sound pro-American. In other words, he was trying to cater to the non-liberal.

Campaign speech extraordinaire, huh?

After explaining how the greatest generation defined American values, he said that the defining issue of our time is keeping that promise alive. . .

Then he said that currently in America there is a shrinking number doing well, and growing number barely getting by.

In Obama's America, everyone gets an equal shot, and their fair share. Equal opportunity is not his thing, it's all about equal results with the liberal left.

But, American values are at stake. Obama said we've got to reclaim them. Then he went through a list of things that has happened before he took office (even though those things accelerated during his presidency), such as jobs leaving our shores. He said, "In 2008 the house of cards collapsed." Obama then proceded to blame it all on regulators and the bad behavior of banks with their bank loans (never mind that it was liberal government policy that required them to do so under the Community Reinvestment Act).

Obama said the banks actions saddled us with more debt (as if his contribution to the national debt is nothing).

"In six months before I took office we lost 4 million jobs. . . those are the facts - now we have created more than 3 million jobs." Cheering democrats stood up, when the fact he offered isn't even a fact. Also, does he not consider that the democrats gained control of Congress in 2006 and the downward spiral was largely due to their policies too?

Then Obama's lies really hit high gear. He said, "American manufacturers are hiring again. . . together we've agreed to cut the deficit. . . new rules on wall street to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Hiring again? In who's universe? And Obma is hardly doing anything to cut the deficit. And notice Obama's only brief mention of the deficit; and he offered nothing on spending cuts or entitlement reform. As for the new rules on Wall Street: since when is it the role of the federal government to dictate to the private market how it is supposed to act? Where in the Constitution are they even given such an authority?

Obama continued by saying that the state of our union is getting strong, and that we've come too far to turn back now (in other words, "re-elect me" - he's campaigning). He said that he won't allow policies that got us in this mess to continue, and got a standing democrat session of applause. Never mind that it was liberal policies that got us into this mess in the first place.

He indicated we need an economy built to last - but isn't that what we had before the liberals grabbed a hold of it?

Obama called for a renewal of american values. I am not sure he understands what American values are. I have always perceived them as being self-reliance, personal responsibility, individualism, and hard work - all of which he has railed against.

Obama then patted himself on the back about how he thinks he saved the auto industry. He said he refused to let the auto industry in the U.S. fall, and that he got the industry to retool and restructure, and now GM is on top as the world's number one auto maker. . . they are?

I think we need to throw the bull crap flag on that one.

He then said that Chrysler has grown faster, and Ford is investing billions (I expected him to say, "and all because of me").

"The U.S. auto industry is back."

Right.

"What's happening in Detroit can happen in other industries. We can't bring every job back that's left our shore, but it is getting more expensive in places like china. . . Business sense to bring jobs back home."

That last set of lies totally contradicts his later call for higher taxes on the successful, and heavier regulations.

Then he went into an interesting call for a change to the tax code. Obama said that as it is now businesses get tax breaks for going over seas. He then was accurate in his claim that the United States has the highest corporate tax. He said if U.S. companies outsource jobs they should be taxed for it. No American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share in taxes by moving overseas. He called for a minimum tax for every company, even overseas. Companies that stay here in America will receive money from that tax. If an American manufacturer, you should get bigger tax cut. You should get a tax cut for building here, and receive government help financing for new plant, training for new workers. It's time to stop rewarding businesses that ship jobs overseas, and reward those that stay. "Send me that legislation and I will sign it right away."

What he was describing sounds good on the surface, but it is protectionism, and historically fails. Besides, is he really going to force taxation on companies doing business overseas? Is he crazy?

Obama then went into how for American companies it is becoming easier to sell around the world. "I will go anywhere in the world to bring American products around the world. I will not stand for those that don't play by the rules." - He won't stand for it? Is he the king?

He named a bunch of moves he claims he made against China and called for the creation of a trade enforcement unit to investigate trade problems in places like China. "No foreign company should have an advantage over American manufacturers." - back to the protectionism again.

You don't win the trade wars by changing the rules, but by producing the best products for the best price.

Bringing the discussion back to our shores, Obama said that American companies can't find workers with the right skills. "Join me in a national commitment to train two million Americans in skills that leads to a job. My administration is lining up companies that want to help. Congress needs to give community colleges more resources to train. Time to turn unemployment system into reemployment system that trains people to get back to work."

The part about changing unemployment into a reemployment system has its pluses. However, going back constitutional authorities, and the role over government, what he is calling for is simply something that is legally out of the hands of the federal government.

Obama moved on to the jobs of tomorrow, saying we must teach even earlier. He said that while other countries double down on education, we are laying off teachers.

The problem isn't money. Education has been crumbling with each passing year as the liberals throw more and more money at it. The Department of Education is a waste because federal monitoring and funding of education is the problem. The problem is federal influence, and a liberal curriculum. Want to improve the schools? Use the curriculum used at the private schools, where the students are doing much better than at the public schools.

Then he said something that about made me choke. Obama said that he is proposing that every state requires kids stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.

Force them? Under what penalty? If they drop out are you going to haul them off to jail?

What an idiot.

Remember, this president thinks the government is the answer to all of the problems, even though it has been big government that has been causing all of the problems. On top of that, he thinks the Congress is an obstacle and to be efficient they need to just do what he tells them.

Case in point: Obama's next topic in the speech was that "This Congress needs to stop interest rates on student loans from doubling - extend tuition tax credit, doubling work study jobs in next five years."

No, the Congress needs to get out of education, and let it do what it does without governmental influence, or liberal control.

He said that college should not be a luxury, but an economic imperative. But doing that cheapens the value of an education, and besides, nothing beats good ol' experience. Just like the dollar, too many degrees out there makes them worth less. Besides, what good is an education when the school is nothing more than an indoctrination center?

Then he went on to the Dream Act and illegals. Obama said that some folks that are not yet american citizens, but raised in America, live in threat of deportation.

If we enforced the laws, and didn't hand out government handouts to these people, and used things like E-Verify, we wouldn't have this problem. Sure, he's right, we should take on illegal immigration, but not by enabling.

Then he said that at the border we have more boots on the ground in his administration, and illegal immigration has gone down.

What? Damn this guy can lie.

"We need comprehensive immigration reform right now."

No, we need to enforce the laws on the books.

"Send me a law to allow those here to earn their citizenship."

Follow the rules, and the path is there. Besides, he only said these things to pander to the Hispanic vote.

Then the old liberal rhetoric came out. "An economy built to last is one that encourages everyone in the country." Then he went on about "women deserve equal pay for equal work."

That is a no brainer, but not only has our society progressed to a point where that is the way it is, but also it is not up to government to force such a thing. But this speech was not about reality. It was about pandering for votes. First the Hispanics, and then the women.

"We should support everyone willing to work who aspires to be the next Steve Jobs. Most new jobs are start ups and new businesses, we should eliminate obstacles and taxes that keep new small businesses from getting started."

Huh? Did Obama say that? Sure as hell doesn't match his actions or past rhetoric.

Obama discussed innovation, research, and then energy, as if the government makes these things happen.

It is up to the market.

Obama then said he will increase by 75% open offshore oil and gas resources production. This coming for the man that just rejected the Keystone pipeline?

Then the green energy pitch began.

Obama says we need a strategy that is cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs. "We have 100 years of natural gas available, let's develop it - we don't have to choose between economy and environment." Then he said something about public money making all of the natural gas stuff possible.

He truly hates the private market, and thinks government is the answer to everything.

Addressing Solyndra, and such, without naming them, Obama said that when it comes to public investments (federal funding and preference politics) the payoffs aren't immediate, some companies fail, "but I will not walk away from promise of clean energy."

Talk about putting all of your eggs in one basket.

"I will not cede the solar or wind or battery technologies to China. Time to stop tax subsidies to oil, and give clean energy tax credits."

Man, he hates oil.

Climate change (mythical and a lie) was his next hit. He used it to call for a clean energy standard that "creates innovation." as if government creates innovation. It is up to the market, not him.

Obama claimed more land will be federally set aside for green energy projects (once again ignoring the constitutional authorities), saying it is a way to save energy. Then he demanded that government also make sure that businesses waste less energy, by doing things like upgrading their buildings. (Is that their decisions, or is he going to force them to?)

Year one returned when Obama then called for rebuilding our infrastructure, claiming we have a need to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges. Wait, isn't that what he promised in 2008? From a democrat point of view, shouldn't those things have been done in the last three-plus years?

To revamp his case, Obama said, "We invested in the Hoover dam and Golden Gate bridge and highway system." All unconstitutional, should have been done privately, and besides, once again he made these promises four years ago. He didn't do it the last few years, so what makes him believe the voters will believe he will do these things now?

Obama said he will use an executive order to clear the way for these new projects (screw Congress and the Constitution on that one, I guess).

Then he says to Congress, "You need to fund these projects, use money from war."

Right. His anti-growth policies have made this all worse and now he is talking about using more money for things we can't afford?

Never been a better time to build, since construction industry hardest hit when this hit.

Yeah, as far as he is concerned, us construction guys are just standing around waiting for Obama to give us jobs.

Home values have declined, he reminded us, and Obama plans to make sure he gives responsible homeowners a chance to save 3k a year by refinancing at historically low rates.

Oh, yeah, like his last mortgage debacle worked so well.

"If you play by the rules, government should do the same."

That was a lie. The rules for government is the Constitution, and he sees that document as the enemy.

"No bailouts no handouts no copouts. We need smart regulations to stop irresponsible lending behavior, or toxic dumping or faulty medical devices. Regulations make free market work better." Then he launched into a comparison of himself to Bush (totally saw that coming). As for this regulations thing, just wait, it gets better.

Obama then launched into how some regulations don't make sense. So, he plans to get rid of bad regulations and replace them with new regulations that do make sense.

How about the federal government backing completely off and letting the market do its own magic?

Obama then told a story about a silly regulation that hammered farmers, considering milk to be like oil, and making it a difficult deal when it came to milk spills. "I'm confident a farmer can contain a milk spill without a federal agency looking over his shoulder."

You are? Wait, this has got to be going somewhere. Oh, wait, this is a chance to hammer on good ol' big oil, right?

He then said, "But I will not back down from the government making sure an oil company can contain their spills."

So back off on a milk spill regulation so that you can go nuts on oil, food safety, water, and insurance companies.

Talk about squeezing Obamacare love into the speech.

Then, "I will not go back to when wall street could play by their own rules."

That was a pander to the freaks that resonate with the Occupy Movement freaks.

"Big bank and financial institutions are no longer allowed to make risky bets." More control over the private industries.

"We will never bail you out again" - (because we will regulate you).

Then he hammered on credit companies, once again believing that heavy government regulation is the answer.

"We'll also create a financial crimes unit. Investigate fraud in banking and credit companies. Make penalties for fraud count. This new unit will hold accountable those that acted recklessly that hurt so many Americans."

Just what we need. . . another worthless, and unconstitutional, federal agency.

Then Obama said to pay down our debt we need to hammer the rich (saw that coming).

And he defended the payroll thing (not a tax cut no matter how much they call it that).

"People cannot afford losing forty dollars out of each paycheck, pass payroll tax cut without delay."

But it was the democrats that demanded it only be a two month cut, when the GOP was holding out to make it a year long cut. But you see, that why. The two month option gave Obama the opportunity to demand Congress go longer. The timing was all a part of the plan.

Back to the deficit, Obama lied when he said, "We have agreed to 2 trillion in cuts and savings." No, there are no spending cuts, the 2 trillion is just deciding to spend less of the planned spending in the future, which they are not held to, and which was still going to be higher than now. Obama is not interested in true spending cuts.

But he is interested in taxing the rich - just like any other socialist Marxist.

Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Do we want to punish success?

He said that if we are serious about paying down our debt we'll tax the rich because we can't do that and pay into VA, etc, otherwise.

"We can't do both."

"We need to change our tax codes so that rich pays their fair share of taxes."

Fair share? The top .1% pays more than the bottom 80%. How is it they are not paying their fair share?

By the way, taxing the rich (progressive tax scale) is a Marxist idea. Just check the Ten Planks of Communism.

Obama then call for tax reform that follows the "Buffet rule", which is that anyone making more than a million a year should not pay less than 30%, nor should get special tax subsidies.

And he wonders why the are all going offshore and overseas.

"But middle class taxes shouldn't go up."

He's a liberal. Middle class taxes will eventually go up. And has in terms of things like the tobacco tax.

"You can call this class warfare all you want" (because it is), "but asking rich to pay more than secretary is not asking much."

Marxism at work.

"Paying fair share in taxes. . . if rich don't pay, others pay for it. Like those on fixed income, etc."

That was class warfare talk right there. Jeez.

"Shared sense of responsibility" - Marxist terminology once again. He's a communitarian. He does not understand individualism. The community is more important than the individual to Obama.

"People think Washington is broken. The biggest blows to our economy came from over whether or not U.S. would pay its bills or not."

He sees that as Washington being broken. When Congress debates and doesn't jump as the President calls for, I see that as Washington working as intended.

"Who benefited from that fiasco?" Never mind that "paying our bills" was never actually in danger.

Lies, lies, lies.

Then he actually said something that made a little sense. He said this all comes from outside money influence in Washington. "Send me bill that bans insider trading among members of Congress."

Hmm, that one actually makes sense. Surely, his democrat brethren aren't too happy about that one.

"A simple majority is no longer enough to get business done. both parties must put an end to it. I asked senate to pass simple rule simple up or down vote within 90 days."

That's not how Congress is intended to work. Debate is important, and must not be brushed aside for the whims of a dictator.

"Executive branch inefficient and out dated, so give me authority to grant . . ." - more power for executive? He already thinks he's king.

"End notion parties must be locked in campaign of mutual destruction. Government should do for people only what they cannot do for themselves and no more (said he was quoting "republican Lincoln")." Thing is, he doesn't believe that.

that's why we are getting rid of outdated regulations, obamacare works with private, we want a smarter more effective govt. We can make real progress, with or without this congress I will keep taking actions to help this economy grow.

"Ending Iraq has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemy. From this position of strength we are able to bring troops home."

Do you think he really believes that?

Obama spoke favorably of the Arab Spring, as if it was his doing. But in reality, it is the early part of the formation of a caliphate.

Then he said something about an oron clad commitment to Israel's security. After all those times he snubbed Israel?

The next line was a favorite of mine because it was a lame attempt to stab at the Right.

"America is back, and anyone who tells you otherwise, that we are in decline, doesn't know what they are talking about."

As long as Obama is president, we are in decline.

He then bragged that the message we get from leaders around the world eager to work with us is we are back. Obama said the opinion of us around the world is higher than it has been in years.

Really? Could have fooled me.

Obama then said we as a nation are the one indispensable nation in foreign affairs, "And as long as I am president I intend to keep it that way."

All by his lonesome? Without Congress?

Then he went back to buttering up the military, even though he has shown time and time again that he hates our folks in uniform.

He said we've increased annual VA spending every year since he's been president.

Really? I'm a patient of VA, and honestly, it's been getting worse.

"We are providing tax credits to companies that hire vets."

Good on the surface, but is the government authorized to do such a thing?

He finally, after an hour of jabbering, said, "Which brings me back to where I began. We can learn a thing or two from the service of our troops. It doesn't matter in that uniform who you are, when you are marching in battle you look out for the person next to you or the mission fails. . . serving one nation, leaving no one behind. My favorite possession is a flag of the SEAL team that got bin Laden, signed by them, some may be republicans or democrats, it doesn't matter, all that mattered that day was the mission. Nobody thought about politics. . . It only succeeded because every single member of that mission did their job, and because every member of that unit trusted each other."

A military unit is different than a society. But he doesn't get that. Besides, since when should a sniveling Marxist that never served a day in the military be lecturing us about what the military is all about?

"No one built this country alone. (anti-individualism). This nation is great because we built it together, as a team, because we have each others backs. As long as we are joined in a common purpose. . . the state of our union will always be strong."

Not with you as president.

..............

The GOP response was by Mitch Daniels, the Governor of Indiana.

He was cordial and respectful, gave admiration even. But, said that when Obama claims the state of the economy is anything but grave, he is not being honest. Then Daniels laid out stats of current conditions.

"The President has put us on course to make it all radically worse."

He then gave statistics on the deficit, which Obama ignored.

Daniels continued, "Obama seems to think we can build a middle class out of government control and taxpayer money."

"This is the first generation in memory to face a future less promising than their parents did."

"2012 is a year of true opportunity . . . not a matter of ideology, but mathmatical with practical answers."

Daniels then explained that our only way out is a private economy, not a government-led one.

Daniels also mentioned Obama's rejection of the Keystone pipeline, calling it, and the President's other policies, pro poverty policy.

If we fail to shift, he reminded us, we will not have the money to continue.

Mitch Daniels then touted individualism, self-government, and that this must be the year we prove the doubters wrong. America is the world's premiere land of opportunity. The government is supposed to serve the people rather than supervise them.

Americans are a people born to liberty. It is time to make our city of the hill shine again.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Angry Liberal Middle Finger

2012-01-24T17:27:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The liberal left is an angry lot. They shout, spew profanity, and spread hate far and wide. Then, they project all of their anger upon their opposition, and accuse the "rightwing" of being what they are.

I experienced one of those typical hatred-filled liberal attacks recently while standing at the edge of a parking garage at the local mall.

As sometimes happens, I was on the road to pick up my wife from her place of employment, which she gained over a year ago (less than a month after our youngest finally moved out), while also co-hosting the Founding Truth radio program that Loki and I produce for the purpose of spreading the important details of the United States Constitution. Loki and I were talking about various points of the Constitution, and history, and in fact was discussing the democrat party's racist history, when a woman walked by me, paused, and listened for a while.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw that she had paused, and I noticed when she walked away, approached her car, and pulled out of her parking space. I turned my attention back towards the roadway and my conversation when the woman's car pulled out of the parking garage, and made a left onto the roadway so that she would drive right in front of me with the driver's side window facing me. As she passed, with the window down, she let out a hysterical fit of laughter, and then fully extended her arm in my direction so as to show me her middle finger, of which she did not pull back into the car until our eyes were no longer able to remain connected.

No conservative, after hearing a liberal spew their leftist nuttiness, would resort to such an angry, vile, hateful display.

My first thought was, "Whatever happened to the days of when democrats claimed they would defend anybody's right to their opinion?"

The new liberals apparently believe in ridiculing their opposition into silence, or something like that.

It is interesting, really, how angry they are. The ideology is an angry one, but also feeds on anger.

Conservative optimism and hope for the future must drive them nuts.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Flawed Republicans Are Still Better Than Obama

2012-01-24T11:56:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The Democrats don't win by gaining votes, but by convincing the opposition not to vote. That is how Obama won the Illinois Senate seat. . . by knocking his opponent out of the race with personal attacks. That is how Obama won the presidency, too. The democrats, and the liberal media, had convinced the voters to hate Bush with their Bush derangement syndrome campaign, while the schools taught the young to follow a cult of personality like our current president. As a result, they pulled off enough votes to win the election.

Most of the nation, however, is conservative, and the liberal left knows it. They have been working on weakening the GOP candidates to pave the way for another Obama win. They must engage in a campaign of personal destruction if they want to have a chance. The Left also knows that moral character is a big deal with conservatives, and that is why when they attack it is normally through the exposure of a republican's moral shortcomings.

Liberals, because the ideology is for the most part dominated by secularists, also believe that people don't change, and can't change. They hold an ignorant understanding of biblical teachings, and they think that by simply slamming republicans for their immoral mistakes of their pasts they can fool the voters enough to win the election.

The problem is, when it comes to Newt Gingrich, the attacks are not only not working, but he is turning their accusations into a positive for him. The liberals believe Newt is resonating with the conservatives because he is attacking the media, but it is really because he is articulating conservatism.

Is Newt Gingrich the ideal conservative? Of course not. If this was a campaign for sainthood, he would lose miserably. As Tom recently said, with my positive posts about Newt's latest escapades, he thinks I am defending a serial adulterer.

Honestly, I am not a huge Newt fan. I have repeatedly claimed that I think he is a party guy that has a history of putting party, and often himself, before his alleged conservative principles. But if I have to choose between an egotistical "serial adulterer," and a narcissistic Marxist student of Saul Alinsky hell bent on destroying the nation as founded by the Founding Fathers and transforming it into a communitarian-style system that considers capitalism the enemy and the Constitution as an obstacle, I will take the adulterer every time.

Besides, if Newt has indeed sincerely seen the error of his ways, and has reached out to God for forgiveness as he has said, then that actually makes me consider supporting him even more. I would rather vote for someone who has made errors, learned from them, and is a better man for it, than a narcissist who thinks he does no wrong and that it is his elitist responsibility to use government to control everyone's lives.

The run of the mill liberal will of course claim that in the end it is the republican voters choosing the candidates, and to place blame on the liberal campaign of personal destruction is giving their opposition to the GOP way too much credit. But let's not forget that not all voters are well informed, and often fall for the leftist propaganda. Also, the republican primary voters in the States with open primaries are not all republicans. Historically, in Michigan, for example, liberals will often vote in the republican primary for the weakest GOP candidate in the hopes of helping their own democrat party candidate.

The liberal business as usual will probably not work this time. People are sick of Obama, and fearful of what his liberal policies are doing to this nation. Also, in the case of Newt, the voters are resonating with his articulation of conservatism. If Newt keeps this up, or if another GOP candidate was to win by articulating conservatism, it will more solidify a GOP win in the upcoming general election. In other words, the more conservative the candidate, the wider the margin of victory over Obama.

After I had written articles refusing to jump on the anti-Cain bandwagon after the accusations of sexual harassment that had no evidence presented along with the accusations (and they interestingly went away without further pursuit after Cain dropped out), and after I had refused to get all over Paterno when the Sandusky details surfaced (I understood that Paterno had informed his next higher up, and I believe he did not understand that he needed to do more because I don't think he fully grasped that what he had been told was reality, plus he felt he had done what he was required to by telling his supervisor - much less was his inaction beyond notifying his superiors anywhere near illegal), liberal Tom left the following comment:

Who are the Republican primary voters again? Let's see.. liberal Democrats? No.. that doesn't sound right.. Oh.. I know.. Republicans. That's right. It's the Republicans that will not vote for Cain and instead put Romney up against Obama to get his ass kicked. But hey.. if it makes you feel better to blame the Democratic party.. then by all means.. have at it. Strange you've lately been defending child rape enablers and perpetrators of sexual harassment. I'm sure Jesus would approve.

I placed this comment here to show the ignorance of the liberal mind, the vitriol of the average liberal, and to address the final sentence because it truly reveals how ignorant the secular liberals are. He added at the end, when it came to me being willing to defend "alleged" child rape enablers and perpetrators of sexual harassment as he put it, "I'm sure Jesus would approve."

Actually, Tom, Jesus would approve. Christ encouraged us to see the best in people, to forgive them of their transgressions (not justify or condone, but forgive), and to accept repentance as Christ would rather than hammer someone over the head over their past mistakes in life. People do change. People can turn away from their wicked ways and become new creatures in Him. This is why, to the dismay of the Jewish leadership, Jesus forgave the prostitute Mary, and why even a murderer, after truly realizing the error of his ways and submitting to the love of Christ, can even receive salvation from the Lord.

I believe Cain when he said he did not harass those women. I believe Paterno died regretting he didn't do more when it came to bringing Sandusky to justice but also died knowing that he had not purposely done anything wrong, and I am at peace with that. And I believe Newt when he says he has seen the errors of his past and he has turned over a new leaf thanks to his Faith in God.

Besides, as I said before, which should I prefer? A person that has struggled with his morality and has cried out to God for forgiveness? Or a liberal leftist that desires to intentionally destroy the nation as it was founded?

I'll take my chances with the repentant sinner every time.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Conservatives Remain the Largest Ideological Group in U.S. - Gallup

Desperate Democrats Calling for Lower Voting Age

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

With the threat of Conservatism encouraging Republican voters to come in droves to the voting booth, the Democrats are getting desperate. Their demonization of candidates like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum is not only not working, but these candidates are meeting the attacks by the liberal left head on with a conservative message that includes the inclusion into their plans of all Americans.

In the hope to drum up more votes, Minnesota U.S. Representative Keith Ellison, also the only Muslim in Congress, said last week that the voter age should be lowered to 16.

Ellison argues that if 16 year olds can hold jobs and drive they should be able to vote. But we must consider whether or not at that age these voters are willing to be fully informed, and if they are willing to vote based on careful consideration of the issues and candidates.

16 year olds are not mature enough in the sense of being informed about politics and the various issues this nation faces, and are more likely to chase after cults of personality, which is exactly why democrats are pursuing this idea. Frankly, I am not even sure it was a good idea to drop the voting age to 18 with the 26th Amendment.

The Founding Fathers expected the voters to be as informed as possible, and that is part of the reason that only property owners were allowed to vote in the beginning. Property owners had a stake in who was elected because of their position in society. Those who did not have "skin in the game" as Obama would call it did not vote for any reason other than what goodies politicians could promise them, or based on a Cult of Personality. In reality, one of our biggest problems in this nation is that voters don't spend the time to be informed as it is, and yet the democrats want to add younger voters who are even less likely to ensure they are informed? Why would the democrats do this? The liberal democrats want this because they know that a good liar with a big smile, and politicians that promise more goodies from the treasury, have a better chance to win the vote of the youngsters, making the deceptive style of campaigning by democrats just what the doctor ordered for the younger voter.

In short, it is a very bad idea.

Let's let people season a little before giving them the extremely important duty of voting.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Dem. Rep. Ellison: Let 16-Year-Olds Vote - The Hill

Representative Giffords To Step Down from Congress

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Rep. Giffords to resign from Congress this week

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona announced Sunday she intends to resign from Congress this week to concentrate on recovering from wounds suffered in an assassination attempt a little more than a year ago that shook the country."I don't remember much from that horrible day, but I will never forget the trust you placed in me to be your voice," the Democratic lawmaker said on a video posted without prior notice on her Facebook page."I'm getting better. Every day my spirit is high," she said. "I have more work to do on my recovery. So to do what's best for Arizona, I will step down this week."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Liberal Idiocy Regarding Newt Responded To

2012-01-24T02:38:00.000-08:00

Neurotic Liberal Tom is a real interesting case. I get a kick out of his silly comments, and rarely respond to them because they are so inane that they don't deserve responses. But, this one needs a little clarification, not that he will understand the truth as it is presented.

His comment on my recent Allen West for Vice President post was as follows:

You choice of Palin in 2008 sure paid of dividends for McCain, didn't it? Assuming of course you wanted a landslide defeat. It's going to be really amusing when a serial adulterer or a Mormon goes up against the Christian with 2 kids and 1 wife.. lol By the way.. did you know that Newt is Catholic? Doesn't that make you crazy?

1) McCain's choice of Palin did pay dividends. McCain would have been slaughtered even worse without choosing her. Palin drew in the conservative vote, which is what is necessary to win the general election. However, because McCain was so damn moderate, many conservatives stayed at home while Obama was drawing the youth vote, as well as some dead people, multiple votes, and other fraudulent means.

2) A Serial adulterer or a Mormon is still better than a raging Marxist bent on destroying this country as Obama has been working on.

3) Obama says he is a Christian, but his actions and words say otherwise. Personally, he sounds more like a secularist than Christian, especially when you count the number of times Barry has mocked the Bible.

4) Yes, Newt and Santorum both are Catholics. I am not Catholic. Catholics have a few doctrinal differences than I do. That doesn't make me crazy. Why would it? Am I going to refuse to vote for a candidate because we have a difference in doctrinal opinion regarding Baptism, or confession, or the manner in which Communion should be applied? Am I supposed to be more worried about a Catholic, or even a Mormon, over a straight out Marxist in the person of Barack Obama? I am more interested in the candidates stance on the Constitution, and conservatism, and in both of those categories all four of the GOP candidates beat the hell out of Obama.

Tom's ignorance is astounding.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Rand Paul Detained by TSA

2012-01-23T23:50:00.000-08:00

GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul issued the following statement on his campaign website this afternoon, following his son Rand’s treatment at the hands of the TSA in Nashville.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Solar Storm Striking Earth

2012-01-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

Strongest solar storm since 2005 hitting Earth

The sun is bombarding Earth with radiation from the biggest solar storm in more than six years with more to come from the fast-moving eruption.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Enemy Expatriation Act - Another Assault on Freedom?

2012-01-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The PATRIOT Act had many Americans concerned that the federal government was going too far in its war on terror by being willing to secretly monitor Americans' Emails, phone calls, and whereabouts.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed by Barack Obama on New Years Eve authorizes the indefinite detention of persons deemed to be terrorists on American Soil, including Americans.

Both of these acts are seen by many as being an egregious assault on our liberties, but neither of them goes as far as HR 3166 and S 1698, the "Enemy Expatriation Act," which would give the federal government the authority to take away a person's American citizenship if they are deemed to be "hostile" against the United States.

I understand the intent, and I get that we have to defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But to strip an American of their Constitutional rights by taking away their citizenship, which also means the elimination of due process, is taking it a little too far. The penalty of treason is death, but short of that Americans should still be given every Constitutional courtesy, until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of their peers.

The bills are sponsored by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA), and are receiving very little opposition. The acts take the concept that America is a part of the battleground in the war on terror that the NDAA presented, and enables the government to decide that if an American is 'engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States,' their citizenship can be stripped from them.

The Pandora's Box this opens has to do with definitions. Sure, everything is fine while "hostilities" and "terrorism" maintains the current definitions we apply to the terms. But what happens when the federal government decides to broaden those definitions? How long before protesters fall under the those definitions? What about language criticizing the government? Will that also be considered hostile against the United States?

The definitions have been ambiguous and encompassing before, and this act opens up opportunities for the federal government that I think is wise not to entertain. It could get to the point that any action the government sees as in opposition to them could be labeled as hostile against the federal government, or supporting terrorism. This act could be the loophole the supporters of the NDAA were looking for to indefinitely detain Americans. Under the Enemy Expatriation Act to be accused of supporting hostilities could be defined any way the government sees fit. Then, if they decide you are hostile towards the U.S. Government, they could simply strip your citizenship and apply the indefinite detention section of the NDAA without the benefit of due process.

What the Enemy Expatriation Act looks like to me is, combined with the NDAA, a big government opportunity to declare war on the American people.

Simply put, all they have to do is deem you as the enemy, and you will suddenly fall under the tightening grip of the federal government - and with these "Acts" it will be perfectly legal for them to do so.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Text of H.R. 3166: Enemy Expatriation Act - GovTrack.us

Political Correctness: Marxist Tool

2012-01-23T14:30:00.000-08:00

Update: Correction to the author of The Authoritarian Personality: It was Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and Sanford who wrote the book.

"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But underthe name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialistprogram, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, withoutknowing how it happened." - Norman Thomas; (1884-1968) six-time U.S. Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. Source: 1948 - from an interview during the presidential campaign. Norman Thomas and Gus Hall, the U.S. Communist Party Candidate, both quit American politics, agreeing that the Republicanand Democratic parties had adopted every plank of the Communist/Socialist agenda and they no longer had an alternate party platform on which to run.

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The List of 45 reveals the communist goals Marxists have pursued to facilitate the internal collapse of Western civilization. In the process, though the Soviet Union fell, they have not let up on their work to take over the U.S., and the rest of the West, from within. The internal madness has been supported in the United States by the democrat party. Through liberalism they are using political correctness to deepen the Marxist hold on America.

It is not difficult to realize that Political Correctness goes hand in hand with Marxism. Political Correctness is cultural Marxism. A politically correct society handcuffs free speech and free press, fuels thought control, and compromises a traditional social order for a more controlled system ruled over by an elite political oligarchy.

The origins of political correctness goes back to the early rumblings of Marxism, with the aim to destroy the Western Culture. It is the goal of the Marxists to penetrate every aspect of Western Culture.

To infiltrate the West the Marxists needed to translate Marxism into economic and cultural terms. The way to do this was to first destroy the moral foundations of the West, for as noted before in history, nations like the United States were great because they were good. Therefore, morality is the enemy of Marxism.

The Marxists assumed that the first world war, because of the anger of the people against the ruling governments, would lead to the workers rising up in revolution in Europe. Instead, the people united within their sovereign nations to fight the enemy. The people were not ready for the wave of communism the Marxists thought was ready to sweep through the West. In 1917 they received their revolution, but it remained contained in Russia.

A Marxist revolution throughout the rest of Europe and the United States would have to be forced through a series of incremental changes to society, including the destruction of a belief system that believed in an authority higher than government. . .Christianity.

Political Correctness emerged as the ideological offspring of The Frankfurt School, as well as from two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary.

Wilhelm Reich, one of the early members of the Frankfurt school, wrote a book entitled The Authoritarian Personality. The book promoted the idea “that the presence in a society of Christianity, capitalism, and the patriarchal-authoritarian family created a character prone to racial prejudice and German fascism.” In other words, everything Western is necessarily prejudiced.

This kind of propaganda is part of the reason that American liberals and Europeans think that fascism, such as Nazism, is right-wing, when in reality the political structure and ideological make-up of fascism is much more like left-wing socialism.

To eliminate the non-Marxist political systems, Reich taught that “the patriarchal social structure would be replaced with matriarchy; the belief that men and women are different and properly have different roles would be replaced with androgyny; and the belief that heterosexuality is normal would be replaced with the belief that homosexuality is ‘normal’.”

But how could such a belief system be initiated? How could the Marxists change the moral makeup of an entire society?

Through the power of the State, which would increase incrementally through regulatory moves designed with the best of intentions to protect the good of the community, an idea of true equality would be initiated. Destroy “all barriers to the introduction of more women and minorities throughout the power structure’.” Then demonize any and all that dare to stand in the way of such "progress." Do so through the threat of lawsuits, intimidation, and a propaganda war against white males, labeling them all as racists and sexists.

One way to achieve this aim was by gaining a foothold in the West's popular media and academia. In other words, teach the youth the party line, and then use the younger generation to silence the older generation through a technique we now call Political Correctness.

What would eventually emerge, hoped the Marxists, is a society where an individual could be arrested for proclaiming sodomy to be a sin, or could be fired from a teaching position for daring to discuss God in or out of the classroom.

As for those two Marxist theorists I mentioned earlier, they also set to work on changing the non-Marxist cultures through strategies that included the destruction of Christianity, and the implementation into society of Political Correctness.

Marxist theorist Georg Lukacs in Hungary believed that society was unable to embrace Marxism because the people were blinded by Western culture, and particularly from Christianity. He said in 1919, "Who will save us from Western Civilization?", theorizing that the greatest obstacle of Marxism was the culture of Western civilization itself.

As the deputy commissar for culture in Hungary in 1919 he introduced sex education into the Hungarian schools as a move to begin the dismantling of the moral and Christian culture that stood in the way of Marxism.

Felix Weil funded a think-tank in 1923 Germany that worked on a plan to translate Marxism from economic to cultural terms, creating Political Correctness as we know it today. Realizing it was not to their advantage to be openly identified as Marxist, the concepts used other titles, and the organization was named The Institute for Social Research. As he wrote in 1971, it was his goal for the institute to contribute to Marxism, and someday be known for it.

One of the methods used to introduce political correctness was through psychology. Director Max Horkheimer was very interested in Sigmund Freud, and combined the Marxist effort with Freudism. This way the Marxists could infiltrate academia and medicine, creating studies departments that were branches of their "Critical Theory." The theory was to criticize, and ultimately to bring down, the West, Christianity, Capitalism, and anything else that stood in the way of Marxism.

Through these techniques they also worked on changing the definitions of society. Marxism became progressive, and progressivism became the drive for a free society. The existing society was redefined as a repressive capitalistic economic order, and religion was redefined as being an authoritarian system ruled over by an oppressive, and imaginary, god.

Everything became a personal right, and to achieve your rights you had to become superior to that which you were critical of. Feminism was encouraged to dominate the oppressive male society, and so forth.

Introduced in the 1930s was the sexual element of political correctness, where gender neutrality was taught. Sexual liberation, where masculinity and femininity was seen as sexual stereotyping, emerged. Sexual differences were taught as being a construct of the evil Western society. We see such madness today, such as in the recent story about a child whose gender was kept secret until recently, at the age of five, because the lesbian parents feared gender stereotyping.

Man's domination of nature was also addressed, placing an emphasis on environmentalism as being a dimension of the battle against materialism, and a way to control society through various environmental regulations, as well as placing "the love of nature" above God himself. The Marxists elevate themselves to God's level as planet changers, and planet savers. To dare speak out against "saving the planet" becomes yet another technique of "political correctness" that can be used to shape the culture, and teach the people to become communitarians under a Marxist system, rather than individuals under a capitalistic system. Through this process of political correctness, the existing capitalistic system is continuously demonized as being one of greed, profit, and materialism. Success is looked down upon, and wealth is viewed as being near criminal.

The boost political correctness received to launch it into today's society occurred in the 1960s, during the student rebellions against the Vietnam War. Searching for concepts they could use to oppose the U.S. Government with, Marxism wormed its way in. Based on concepts in the book "Eros and Civilization," philosophies that taught of the dangers of the capitalistic order emerged. Using Freudian principles, it was argued that the oppressive order was repressing liberation, and freedom could only be reached through a sexual revolution where eros and libido were liberated. The "if it feels good, do it" mantra rose from the protests, and "doing your own thing" became the call for a world of "polymorphous perversity."

Make Love, Not War.

Daring to criticize those freedoms was deemed by the rebellious youth as being immoral, and against the "rights" of the protesters.

Political Correctness then drew the ideological lines. Either you buy in to the insanity, or you recognize the attempt, through political correctness, to insert the "power of the state" into our society. Hate Crimes reach so far into our freedoms as to criminalize unacceptable political thoughts. Affirmative Action is a part of it. The Gay Rights Agenda is using it. Anyone that dares dissent from Political Correctness is ridiculed into silence, or threatened with legal action. In the name of Political Correctness, the very freedoms we fight to keep will be taken from us, and because it is through Political Correctness, we shrug it off as "the right thing to do."

After all, we don't want to offend anybody, right?

Welcome to Marxism in America.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

List of 45 - Snooper Report

Political Correctness: More Insidious and Dangerous Than Most Realize, Say Writers - LifeSite News

The Origins of Political Correctness - Accuracy in Academia

Couple Finally Reveals Child's Gender, Five Years After Birth - Shine from Yahoo

The Means of Communism - Aggressive Christianity

Man and Nature, Part IV: A Marxist Critique of the “Green” Environmental Movement - The Charnel House

EPA – Unconstitutional government agency that is planning a pollution control of Power Plants which will force many to close or to comply to whatever the government wants - Politics, Religion, and Family

Norman Thomas Quote - Liberty Tree

Israel: Palestinians Fire on West Bank Patrol

2012-01-23T10:44:00.000-08:00

Israel has always been a nation surrounded by the enemy. Yet, the safest place to be in the Middle East is Israel. Security is incredible there. Nonetheless, war continues to loom all around her. . .

-----

Palestinians fire on West Bank patrol: Israel army - AFP/Yahoo News

Palestinian gunmen opened fire at an Israeli army patrol near the West Bank city of Ramallah overnight, an Israeli military spokeswoman said on Sunday.

"During a routine patrol during the night, shots were fired by Palestinians at a military vehicle near Ramallah without causing injuries. The vehicle was lightly damaged," she told AFP.The shooters were not apprehended, the spokeswoman said.

Israeli troops routinely patrol throughout the West Bank, often carrying out arrests of Palestinians. Shooting against such patrols has become rare in recent years.

On Sunday morning, Israeli police said a Palestinian man wielding an axe attempted to attack security staff at the Qalandia checkpoint leading to Ramallah.

-----

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Abiotic Oil Means that Peak Oil Is A Lie

2012-01-23T07:18:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Oil is not a finite resource.

The idea that oil is not a fossil fuel as we have been told, but that it is a replenishing abiotic substance that originates from the Earth's mantle, is no stranger to Political Pistachio. In 2010, and 2011, I indicated in articles I have written here at Political Pistachio that there is no oil shortage, for oil is abiotic.

The oil crisis is completely made up out of thin air by the politicians because statists need a crisis to do what they want. Otherwise, you would never allow them to act in the tyrannical manner they try to.

Creating oil crisis after oil crisis also assists in the boom-bust cycle the economic engineers have their puppet strings wrapped around.

Now, we are told, due to the limited resource that oil is, and the influence burning oil has on our poor little planet, we must divorce ourselves from what has been the most efficient source of energy for more than a hundred years.

The problem is, the concept of man-made global warming is man-made, and the idea that we are exhausting the fossil fuel resources and have merely decades left before we deplete the supply of oil under the earth's crust, is simply not true.

Amazing how they really expect us to believe what took millions of years to produce, if you believe that oil is a fossil fuel, can be depleted in a mere couple hundred years. And then, these alarmists claim, when the oil runs out, if we haven't found other efficient means of energy, we will suffer the collapse of civilization. Death, famine, war, and a return of humanity to the hunter-gatherers whence we came.

Problem is, for these hysterical leftist statists, is that oil is not a fossil fuel. It is abiotic.

The idea that oil is a fossil fuel goes back hundreds of years, but the biological roots of oil has been challenged by a number of scientists who have concluded that oil, like coal, and natural gas, replenishes from sources within the mantle of earth.

The Russians discovered this truth during the 1950s and 1960s because they had to. The Soviet Union was cut off from the West's oil supply, so they searched deeper. They looked where nobody was willing to. Now, Russia is among the leading oil exporters.

American oil reserves are massive. Shale oil discovered beneath North Dakota is claimed to have more oil than any of the Middle Eastern oil producers. Shale oil, however, is more difficult to extract, and it has only been recently that we've attained the technology necessary to make extraction efficient enough to be cost effective.

The fear of peak oil has the world powers waging war, fighting over prices, and fighting over trade routes. Yet, in the United States alone we not only have plenty of reserves to take care of us for hundreds of years, even if you believe the fossil fuel theory, but if oil is abiotic as believed by many scientists, we have no reason whatsoever to be dependent upon any foreign oil. Our only limitations are placed on us by ourselves, in our willingness to drill, and how quickly we can process the oil into the products we desire. However, our current administration has placed limits on drilling domestically, and on the construction of new refineries.

If oil replenishes itself, and we won't run out, there is no need for the fighting, or the rising prices. Peak Oil is a concept needed, however, by the folks who want to control the population. Limiting energy use is an easy way to control the populace. Everything ties into energy. Transportation, movement of goods, comfort in one's home, production of food, production of all other products, technology, and on and on and on.

Crisis equals control, and without a peak oil crisis, the statists have little to use when it comes to engineering society into the form they desire.

The concept of peak oil enables the planners to create a false consensus that there is a scarcity of oil, no matter how artificial such a consensus may be. The limitations of oil, as taught by these social engineers, enables them to hold the world hostage.

Don't get me wrong. If there are more efficient sources of energy that can be produced more cheaply, and easily, we ought to pursue them. But for the time being, as the market has dictated, oil is our most efficient means of energy. With the realization that there isn't even any limitations on the production of oil, aside from the limitations we place ourselves, there is no reason for us to allow the statists of the world to dictate to us regarding the availability of oil.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Abiotic Oil - Free Energy News

Fossils From Animals And Plants Are Not Necessary For Crude Oil And Natural Gas, Swedish Researchers Find - View Zone

Abiotic Oil: Science or Politics? - From the Wilderness

Abiotic Oil a Theory Worth Exploring - US News and World Report

Another Crisis Goes to Waste - Political Pistachio

Obama's Democrats: Taking it to the Oil Companies - Political Pistachio

Allen West for Vice President

2012-01-23T03:47:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The last time we had a presidential election a full year before McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate I said that if the nominee was smart they would choose Palin. (July 2007, September 2007, October 2007)

This time, I have been unsure if I think it will be Palin again, Rand Paul, or Allen West. I've been leaning towards Allen West. I interviewed him in 2008, and was impressed with him back then. Now, I think he is ready, and I think the conservative candidate for the GOP ticket (in other words, if it is not Romney) will choose Allen West.

It turns out that I am not the only one that feels that way. . .

Gingrich says Allen West would be considered as his running mate - Tea Party Tribune

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Fast and Furious Gun Scandal Subpoena Issued

2012-01-22T23:55:00.000-08:00

BREAKING on Fast and Furious: Subpoena Issued for Patrick J. Cunningham, U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona

by AWR Hawkins at BIG Government

I just received an email from Congressman Darrel Issa’s office, containing a copy of a letter that was just sent Patrick J. Cunningham, Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. The letter announces that Cunningham has just been subpoenaed for “repeated refusals to testify voluntarily” before the House Oversight Committee, concerning accusations that he relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Justice Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

Wrote Issa to Cunningham:

During the course of our investigation, the Committee has learned of the outsized role played by the Arizona U.S. Attorney’s Office – and you specifically – in approving the unacceptable tactics used in Fast and Furious. Senior Justice Department officials have recently told the Committee that you relayed inaccurate and misleading information to the Department in preparation for its initial response to Congress.

These officials told us that even after Congress began investigating Fast and Furious, you continued to insist that no unacceptable tactics were used. In fact, documents obtained confidentially just last week appear to confirm that you remained steadfast in your belief that no unacceptable tactics were used, even after the Department’s initial response to the congressional inquiry. Given that the Attorney General has labeled these tactics as unacceptable and Fast and Furious as “fundamentally flawed,” this position is startling.The subpoena requires Cunningham to appear on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 for a deposition. And while it’s heartening to see Issa and his committee continuing to pursue those who might be covering up the truth on Fast and Furious, Eric Holder still has his job and has yet to face prosecution for his role in this lawless operation.

The bottom line: the wheels of justice are turning, they’re just moving so slowly that progress is imperceptible.-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Keystone Pipeline Rejection May Prompt Canada to Sell to China

2012-01-22T22:04:00.000-08:00

Obama’s Keystone Denial Prompts Canada to Look to China Sales

President Barack Obama’s decision yesterday to reject a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

United States May Close Embassy in Syria

2012-01-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The massacres in Syria have evolved into violence against all who stand in the way. The U.S. Embassy has become a target, and among those concerns of violence against Americans in Syria, and the brittle condition of security in Damascus, the U.S. Government is considering closing the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, especially if the Syrian government is unable to guarantee security in the area.

The violence in Syria has been moving closer to the center of Damascus, where the American Embassy is, making the streets surrounding the embassy more and more dangerous for U.S. personnel. Other embassies in the area have also been considering packing up and leaving.

In recent months the U.S. Embassy, and U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, have suffered physical attacks. Unlike many of the other embassies, however, the U.S. facility in Damascus sits right on the street, dangerously exposed.

Since the U.S. Embassy in Damascus is Washington's eyes and ears on what's going on inside Syria, the preference is to keep the embassy open and functioning.

Nonetheless, last week, the State Department announced that more U.S. diplomats would be leaving Damascus due to the deteriorating security situation there.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

U.S. Considering Shutting Down Its Embassy in Syria - Foreign Policy

The Death of Joe Paterno, and Final Words About the Sandusky Sex Scandal

2012-01-22T15:14:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Joe Paterno, longtime coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions died this morning. He was forced out when the Sandusky sex scandal erupted, but one could say that this may have very well been his final season as coach anyway... or was it? Paterno lived for football. Coaching the Penn State Nittany Lions was his life. Without it, death progressed quickly. His death may have come now because coaching football was no longer a part of his life. They are telling us he died of cancer, and clinically, that is accurate. But I think he died of a broken heart. Cancer advanced because what JoePa lived for was no longer there to hold death back.

The thing about Paterno is that I don't think he truly understood what he had done, or failed to do. As far as Joe was concerned, when he was told about Sandusky's shower room abuse of young boys he went to his next higher up. He used his chain of command, and his hands were clean. He didn't think he should have done more because he expected the people above him that he told to do what needed to be done.

Paterno "was" the football program at Penn State. The Legend had more responsibilities than the average coach because of his legendary status. It's like when sports stars complain because people look up to them, and they swear that they are not role models - yes they are, like it or not, because people are looking up to them, like it, or not. For Paterno, the same dynamics applied. Because of who he was, he should have done more to make sure Sandusky was brought to justice.

The failure of Paterno to follow up as we think he should have, ultimately, was not criminal. It was wrong, it was a failure to protect children, but it was not illegal. He did the minimum required. Paterno reported to the next level up what had happened. End of story.

His death, I hope, was peaceful. As a football coach I respect the man, and from what I understand, he fought death the same way he coached football - with fervor and class. He was not a person outside Penn State football, because to him there was nothing but Penn State football. He failed to follow through when it came to Sandusky, but I honestly believe he never understood the depth of that. He was football, and nothing but football. All of that other stuff, he felt, was better left up to the suits in the offices.

Fare thee well, Joe Paterno. You are still a football legend.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Fired Penn State coach Joe Paterno dead at 85 - Yahoo! News

Are You Ready For Some Football. . . and a great big Taco Salad?

2012-01-22T11:54:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Those who know me know that I am a huge football fan. Granted, I am an even bigger baseball fan, but not much beats the conference championship games and the big game two weeks later. Mrs. Pistachio has to work today. She left about an hour ago, and will get back what looks like to be after the second game is over. Yeah, my team is not there, but I am a fan of the game, and I am jazzed about these match-ups. Oh, and what is pictured to the left is the food I will be munching on during the games.

The Taco Salad is simply a ladle full of pinto beans mixed with my favorite canned refried beans, topped with seasoned ground beef, cheddar cheese, finely chopped brown onion, cilantro, green onions, lettuce, tomatoes, and my very own home-made salsa. Top it off with lime juice straight from the lime, and surround it with white corn tortilla chips, and you are ready to munch.

Enjoy the games. I know I will.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Scott Walker Exposes Recall Proponents on Fox & Friends

2012-01-22T11:19:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

ABC Even Tries Subtle Approach to Embarrass Gingrich

2012-01-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

By Kevin Price

ABC’s popular reality show, “What Would You Do?” (with John Quinones) took a jab this week at GOP Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. This came just a couple of days after the network’s interview with Gingrich’s ex-wife, which included a claim that the former House Speaker wanted an “open marriage.” The “What Would You Do?” episode didn’t take a cheap shot at Gingrich’s personal life, but instead attempted, in this writer’s opinion, to embarrass the candidate when it comes to a policy that the candidate holds dear and seems to resonate well with conservative audiences.

If you have watched Speaker Gingrich for long, you know about his views regarding breaking the cycle of poverty and instilling an excellent work ethic in young people. He says things such as “we should shut down the public janitorial unions around the country that our busting the budgets of schools and replace them with students who would work after school to gain some money, experience, and the character to be a successful adult” (this is a paraphrase). Instead of being resistant to such a statement, many audiences give him standing ovations.

I believe Gingrich’s view was irritating to the predominantly liberal media and I think they were bewildered by the audience’s reaction. “Maybe if they saw the policy in action,” I believe they pondered, “they would understand the cruelty of Gingrich’s view.”

The way “What Would You Do” works is fairly simple. The show hires actors to behave in a certain manner in an attempt to get a response from bystanders. For example, on a recent show they hired adult and pre-teen actors to play parent/child in scenarios in which the adult would play drunk and try to get his or her adolescent child to drive them home. The response among bystanders was overwhelming. Rarely did people merely standby and watch them drive away. However, when they got to the “Gingrich thesis,” there was a decidedly different response.

In the scenario they created to prove the error of Gingrich’s philosophy (and, by the way, they referred to the former Speaker's view when setting the stage of the segment), they could not merely have a young person working; he had to be in, what would be described as an abusive scenario. The adult actor that worked with the child as his manager in a grocery store would berate the child, condemning the boy’s “laziness” or “whining” or other inadequacy as a worker. To make matters worse he would say that the child was “stealing from the company by making $5 an hour” (well below the current minimum wage). Ironically (and I am sure to ABC’s surprise), very few people said anything at all and when one finally did, it was not even because the child was “under aged,” but because of the way the adult spoke to the child. There was no problem that these young people were working, but they did not want to see them mistreated. I am sure they would not want to see anyone mistreated!

I was surprised that ABC even ran this segment, because it proved Gingrich’s thesis more than undermined it. Americans are tired of multi-generational entitlement and they want young people to have healthy attitudes about work, and that is best obtained by starting to work as young people. The only one who should be embarrassed by this segment is ABC itself.

--

Kevin Price

Host

Price of Business on KNTH 1070, PriceofBusiness.com

Home of Bloomberg Radio

Publisher and Editor in Chief, USDailyReview.com

Frequently found on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com

Syndicated columnist whose articles appear on a variety of media outlets.

Follow Kevin on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/KevinPriceLive

Like his new Facebook page at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Kevin-Price/225149017497975

Kevin Price's Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/PriceofBusiness

Obama: Re-Elect Me Captain!

2012-01-22T06:39:00.000-08:00

Get Liberty

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Constitution Study Radio: Bill of Rights

2012-01-22T03:30:00.000-08:00

Constitution Study Radio - Myth #12: Bill of Rights

by Douglas V Gibbs
in Politics Conservative
Sun, Jan 22, 2012 06:00AM Pacific (use link above to listen to archive of this episode as well)

Myth #12: The Bill of Rights apply to the States. Through the Constitution with Douglas V. Gibbs

John Adams: Perpetual Chicanery

2012-01-22T01:34:00.000-08:00

"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be." --John Adams

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Boeing Gets Last Laugh?

2012-01-21T23:20:00.000-08:00

By J.J. Jackson

Organized Labor was all aglow. After the National Labor Relations Board decided it was going to tell Boeing that the company could not shift production from its union shop in Seattle to its non-union shop in South Carolina, there was reason to celebrate. Big Labor had successfully enlisted its allies in Big Government to infringe upon the economic liberty of Americans and a company in order to protect itself. There were smiles all around among the workers and their leaders.

But, as fate would have it, reality would not be denied. As always, when reality is bent, it snaps right back to thwack the knuckles of those who foolishly try such an impossible feat.

Earlier this month Boeing announced that, due to costs, it would shut down its unionized plant in Kansas City . The aftermath? 2,160 employees, including many union employees, are going to be shown the door and given pink slips. It does not escape notice that perhaps some of these jobs in Kansas City might have been able to be saved had Boeing been allowed to go ahead with its original plans for operations in South Carolina and saved money in that regard.

Some of the work from the Kansas City plant will be diverted to Oklahoma City . Boeing operates a non-union facility there according to published reports on the company’s plans moving forward. Sounds to me like, if they are going to be consistent, the NLRB should be prepared to meddle here too. That is if they value the union workers in Kansas City as much as the ones in Seattle . Or was this part of the deal all along? Was it decided that the union workers in Kansas City would be sacrificed to save the union workers in Seattle ? It is hard to say with as secretive as the Obama Administration is. But if the NLRB does not act on behalf of the Kansas City union members it is a very real question that must be asked.

The union machinists and engineers at the Kansas City facility are obviously upset by the news of their plant closing. As are some elected officials in Kansas who went to bat for Boeing over the issue with the South Carolina plant. They thought they could buy them some good will and that this good will would prevent Boeing from touching the local plant.

The tiff between Boeing, the Seattle union and South Carolina was front page news for the longest time. Outside of Kansas, however, the end of an 85-year era with Boeing as a major employer in the State is barely garnering any news. Almost as though the hypocrisy is so blatant that not even the mainstream media wants to draw attention to it. After all, they cannot dare cast President Obama as uncaring about the plight of union workers in America after they spent months pumping him up and trumpeting his interference with Boeing’s “sinister” plans to undercut organized labor. Right?

In the end it seems as though Boeing gets the last laugh. It still gets to cut costs. It still gets to shed itself of untenable labor agreements which it allowed itself to be strong armed into accepting. And most importantly it still gets to make airplanes.

Where is your union now? And where is your messiah to save you all of you? All of you who put your faith in President Obama as the one man capable of distorting reality should ask yourself these questions. The answer will not be to your liking. But you should still ask the question.

----------------
J.J. Jackson is a libertarian conservative author from Pittsburgh, PA who has been writing and promoting individual liberty since 1993 and is President of Land of the Free Studios, Inc. He is the Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts The Right Things. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at Liberty Reborn.

Newt Gingrich Wins Big in South Carolina

2012-01-21T19:44:00.000-08:00

Gingrich 41% - 19 Delegates
Romney 27%
Santorum 17%
Paul 12%

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012/south-carolina-primary-jan-21

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Loki and Doug on the U.S. Constitution: Founding Truth

2012-01-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

Founding Truth of the U.S. Constitution

by HOV Radio
in Politics Conservative
Sat, Jan 21, 2012 05:00PM Pacific

What is our government doing, to the American people, that is not following the Constitution? Listen here and find out!

South Carolina Primary, Supreme Court Decisions, and more on Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs

2012-01-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

The race in South Carolina has gotten tight, and we'll tell you why.

The courts have decided that they can tell churches how to practice their Christianity, and we will tell you when courts can, and can't, do such a thing.

The Supreme Court has told a lower court that they cannot draw the election maps for Texas, that is up to the legislature. We will tell you the Constitutional angle on that one.

Some republicans are fearful we may wind up with a brokered convention. What is a brokered convention? Why is it a big deal? Why is it not a big deal?

When Obama made his recent recess appointments, the Congress said he couldn't because they were in pro forma session. . . what does that mean, and who was right?

The Stop Online Piracy Act has been getting a lot of attention, and is being called unconstitutional. But, on its face it is completely constitutional. Confused? We'll explain.

Obama says no to Keystone Pipeline. But what if a pipeline is planned upon from the oil rich lands of North Dakota to Texas? Can he stop that one? Where does the federal jurisdiction start and stop?

Thomas Jefferson saw the corruption of corporations and banks coming, but he was not anti-bank or anti-corporation.

The Mexican Border has become more dangerous than Afghanistan. How is that an unconstitutional reality?

A dismembered body was found near the Hollywood Sign.

Obama Administration orders health plans to make contraception free for all!

Plus, we'll have the Book of the Week, 5 Big Stories of the Week, and the Nuts and Nuggets segment.

You don't want to miss this edition of Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs - on today live at 2:00 pm Pacific at KCAAradio.com. And thank you to the radio stations that carry this show, KCAA, KCXL, and WHTH. Call in with your questions or comments during the live broadcast at 888-909-1050.

You can listen to all podcasts of all past broadcasts of this program at KCAA's Podcast Page.

Special Guest Douglas V. Gibbs sets the record straight on The Many Moods of Vince Daniels

2012-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

Douglas V. Gibbs will be the guest on the Many Moods of Vince Daniels today at 12:30 pm Pacific. The segment will simulcast on American Daily Review radio.

Vince has some challenges in store. The last two times he had me debating an anarchist.

Join us live at 12:30 pm at KCAAradio.com.

www.vincedaniels.com

American Daily Review radio previews Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs

2012-01-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

American Daily Review

by ADR Radio
in Politics Conservative
Sat, Jan 21, 2012 12:00PM Pacific

Welcome to the pre-game show for Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs (available on three radio stations around the country). Join radio titans Doug Gibbs of Political Pistachio and JASmius of Hard Starboard for today's radio program.

Things Change Just In Time for South Carolina Primary

2012-01-21T09:08:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

After Iowa everybody was excited because Romney had met his match in Santorum. The popularity for Rick Santorum drove upward nationally as New Hampshire approached. Romney won New Hampshire as expected, and after all the votes were counted, Santorum edged Gingrich. But the press went wild. Two straight wins for Romney with Iowa and New Hampshire. Could nothing stop Romney?

Then Iowa realized Romney had not won after all. Santorum edged him out.

Mitt Romney was still being called the favorite, even with his capitalism being attacked, and questions about his accounts in the Cayman Islands being raised (which have turned out to be completely legal). Romney felt a little down draft with that, but remained ahead, until. . .

Newt Gingrich decided to begin doing something I have been saying all along is the winning recipe. The more conservative the candidate, the bigger the chance to win. In the General Election, the more conservative the candidate, the greater the margin of victory.

Gingrich, in the last two debates, began to articulate conservatism in a "no fear" manner. Political Correctness went out the window. Worrying about rocking the boat with the truth went out the window. As a result, Newt received standing ovations, and the lead.

The poll numbers in South Carolina have shifted. Voters have been changing their minds about Gingrich, taking him past Mitt Romney into a substantial lead among likely voters. The American Research Group poll, conducted Thursday and Friday, shows Gingrich leading Romney by a 40%-26% margin. ARG's last poll, released Thursday, showed a virtual tie with Gingrich at 33% and Romney at 32%.

This makes the Republican Establishment worry, for it shows how brittle Romney truly is. From the establishment's point of view, Romney has shown himself to be too brittle, Newt Gingrich is too unpredictable, Santorum is too conservative, and Ron Paul is too crazy.

What to do, what to do.

Romney's campaign, if it does not win in South Carolina, will really need the next state, Florida, to recapture the lead. But if Florida takes a queue from South Carolina, and if Santorum has a great debate, this race may continue to be wide open, and in fact begin leaning in the direction of conservatism.

- Tune in today at 2:00 pm Pacific at KCAAradio.com for the "Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs" show, to hear more analysis on the race, a discussion about brokered conventions, and much more.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Romney downplays expectations, Gingrich surges as South Carolina votes - CNN Politics

2012 South Carolina Primary (Track Live) - Fox News

Keystone Rejection Insanity

2012-01-21T01:51:00.000-08:00

Rejecting the Keystone pipeline is an act of insanity

By Robert J. Samuelson,

President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is an act of national insanity. It isn’t often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and — beyond the symbolism — won’t even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his reelection that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.

Aside from the political and public relations victory, environmentalists won’t get much. Stopping the pipeline won’t halt the development of tar sands, to which the Canadian government is committed; therefore, there will be little effect on global-warming emissions. Indeed, Obama’s decision might add to them. If Canada builds a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific for export to Asia, moving all that oil across the ocean by tanker will create extra emissions. There will also be the risk of added spills.

Read the Rest at Washington Post

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Etta James Passes Away at 73

2012-01-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Many, many years ago I had the opportunity to meet Etta James. I was not familiar with her by name, but once I heard her music I realized she had always been there for me. We had a brief encounter, a few words, but she struck me as a genuine human being. What you see is what you got with Etta James, in my opinion.

A powerful blues and jazz singer, I fell in love with her music as I learned more about it after our chance encounter. "At Last" is my favorite, but would anyone expect any less?

In 2010 Ms. James was diagnosed with leukemia. She also suffered from hepatitis C and dementia.

She died in Riverside, California, right up the way from here.

Etta James is now in the arms of the Lord.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Newt Denies Marianne's Accusation He Wanted an Open Marriage

2012-01-20T18:31:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The liberal left uses the power of accusation at any chance they can. Their power of accusation knocked Herman Cain right out of the presidential race. No evidence was ever provided. The scenarios were unlikely. All of the women interestingly had connections to Chicago. And then once Cain was out, the accusations went away. The story stopped. It had served its purpose.

Newt Gingrich says his ex-wife Marianne's accusations against him in an ABC interview that he asked her for an open marriage is false. He hammered on CNN with starting last night's debate with the question, and denied he ever made such a request. Is Marianne lying? Everyone assumed it was true. Sure, he did mess around, and Newt's paying some of the consequences now. But how interesting for this to pop up two days before the South Carolina Primary.

Have the democrats no shame?

As with Cain, I am not going to jump on the bandwagon and say what she said is true. I will accept that Newt has denied it, and until I see evidence otherwise, I am going to believe him. But, like I said in the last post, if Newt is smart, he will admit that he made mistakes in the past, that he was unfaithful, and so on and so forth. And there is evidence that Marianne is unstable. One can almost understand Newt's frustration with her. Anyway, Conservatives, if we see that the repentance is sincere, are a forgiving lot. Understand, forgiveness does not justify, nor does it condone, but forgiveness is available. People change, people grow, and we want to believe that Newt is sincere when he says he's turned his life over to the Lord, and that his repentance is true.

One thing is for sure, however; women voters with accusations such as this are not as quick to forgive and forget as male voters. . . the Left is counting on that.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Newt Ally Calls Ex-Wife Unstable, Unhinged - US News and World Report

Marianne Gingrich: Newt Lacks Moral Character To Be President

2012-01-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The liberal left knows that the moral character of candidates is important to conservative voters, and that is why they attack republican candidates' "moral issues." That is why they have gone after Romney's family tree, and the presence of polygamy in it. . . as if Mitt has control of what his great-great-grandfather did.

Then there is Newt Gingrich. The liberal democrats are licking their chops on him. Newt's baggage when it comes to past immoralities could fill a freightliner. Now, in a recent interview, Marianne Gingrich (Newt's second wife) revealed that Newt at one point asked if they could have an open marriage that included his mistress - who is now his wife.

You mean like the Clintons? At least Newt asked. Bill just took Lewinski despite what Hillary thought. That, however, didn't seem to phase the left at all. Such a double standard.

If Newt is smart, he'll remember that conservatives not only expect a candidate to have good moral character, especially if they espouse family values, but that also conservatives believe that people can repent and be forgiven.

Newt ought to say that he screwed up. He was wrong. He was younger, foolish, and perhaps even stupid. But, having those experiences behind him, he is a smarter man for it, and he has turned away from such actions.

Liberals don't think people can change. Fact is, they can, and someone who err'd, learned from it, and has grown as a result is actually something that conservatives appreciate.

Newt could easily turn this negative into a positive if he can sincerely convince the voters that he is repentant of his past actions.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Polygamy Prominent in GOP Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney's Family Tree - Fox News

Surging Gingrich: I won't Criticize my Ex-Wife - MSNBC

Gingrich ex-wife claims he sought 'open' relationship, candidate won't say 'anything negative' - NBC Politics

Exclusive: Gingrich Lacks Moral Character to be President, Ex-Wife Says - Yahoo News

Perry Out, Endorses Gingrich

2012-01-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas dropped out of the Republican presidential race here on Thursday and announced his endorsement for the candidacy of Newt Gingrich, a man he called a “conservative visionary.”

With Perry gone it will lessen the division of the conservative vote. In other words, it will hurt Romney. With it turning out that Santorum actually won Iowa, if Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina, it could make things very interesting.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Perry Ends Bid for Presidency - New York Times

Santorum Claims Win in Iowa 2 Weeks after Caucuses - AP/Yahoo News

James Madison: Rights of Property

2012-01-20T06:27:00.000-08:00

"The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government." --James Madison, Federalist No. 10, 1787

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Joe Biden Gaffe: Tells San Francisco Crowd "Giants on the way to Super Bowl"

2012-01-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Mercy Warren: Stopping Destructive Tyranny

2012-01-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government." --Mercy Warren

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Wild Bill for America: Outsmarting Obama

2012-01-19T18:46:00.000-08:00

A brilliant move by China illustrates the foolishness of liberal politics.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Constitution Class in Temecula: Pro Forma and SOPA

2012-01-19T15:03:00.000-08:00

Pro Forma Session was ignored by Obama. . . but what is Pro Forma?

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) has a lot of people mad. They see it as an opportunity for the federal government to intrude on free speech rights. But SOPA is constitutional!

We will discuss these topics, and more, tonight at the Temecula Constitution Class at Faith Armory. . .

Join us at 6:00 pm!

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama Says No To Keystone Pipeline

2012-01-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The liberal denial of the Keystone Pipeline is actually pretty confusing. I get the whole environmentalist thing, and I know that Obama is in trouble so he will do anything to draw back in his base like the nutty environmentalists, but logic doesn't seem to be working here.

Hmmm, did I just use "logic" and "Obama" in the same sentence?

The liberal left is constantly screaming about how we are "dependent" on Middle Eastern oil. We keep buying oil from our enemies, and that is a bad thing. Now, our ally and neighbor to the north, Canada for those of you that are geography impaired, has all kinds of oil they want to sell to us, and all we need to do is build a pipeline (wow, job creation too!) to get it down here. Win-win for everybody. . . except the liberals because the possibility of a leak on a pipeline (don't we have miles and miles and miles of pipeline that isn't leaking?).

By the way, we already import more oil from Canada than any other country.

Anyway, if we don't take it, they will sell it somewhere, and they are talking communist China.

Cheap oil, local oil, and not from the Middle East oil. . . but they won't.

Oh, did I say that it would create jobs to build the pipeline, too?

What is wrong with these people?

"Logic" and "liberals" doesn't seem to work in the same sentence, either.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama Rejecting Pipeline, Pokes Back At GOP - National Journal

82nd Quake Since Last Summer Rocks Washington/Virginia Region

2012-01-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

A magnitude 2.5 earthquake struck central Virginia early Wednesday morning, originating from the same area as the 5.8 tremor that shook the region last summer.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Small Quake Rattles Central Virginia, 82nd Since Last Summer - WTOP

Shooting in Texas: Iranian Student Activist

2012-01-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

During the news break on the radio this story came across about an Iranian medical student well known for being a women's rights activist, and in opposition of the Iranian regime. A woman willing to stand up to Islamism. She was shot and killed in her car in front of her home.

I don't know about you, but the first thing that went through my head is that the hit was because Islamism can't stand a woman standing up for herself like Gelareh Bagherzadeh.

Nothing was stolen. She was simply shot through the window.

I think we will see a connection to her willingness to stand up against the Islamic insanity against women, and a true believer in the nuttiness that is Islam. I will not be surprised if the killer turns out to be an Islamist.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Iranian Student Activist Shot To Death in Texas - ABC News/Yahoo News

Jefferson Saw The Corruption of Banks and Corporations Coming

2012-01-18T20:10:00.000-08:00

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and the corporations will grow up around them, will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson, from the debate on the recharter of the Bank Bill (1809).

Note that this is not an anti-bank or anti-corporation statement - this is a statement about how banks and corporations can be a problem if the people do not restrain them to their proper place.

In other words, it is nobody's fault but our own. We let it happen. It is up to us to turn things around. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Understanding Eligibility for President of the United States

2012-01-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Eligibility

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 states that the eligibility for President includes the requirement that the individual be a natural born Citizen.

Notice that the Constitution says a natural born citizen, “or” a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. This was to ensure that anyone alive at the time of the adoption of the Constitution who was a citizen was eligible, and anyone born after the adoption of the Constitution had to be a natural born citizen to be eligible. The word “or” gives us a clue that there is a difference between “natural born citizen,” and “citizen.”

Some people will use the Fourteenth Amendment as an argument regarding the definition of natural born citizen. The Fourteenth Amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The Fourteenth Amendment, in this clause, as it states, only addresses “citizenship” - not the concept of being a natural born citizen. Therefore, it does not apply when discussing the concept of natural born citizenship. The clause was written as it was to protect the citizenship of the children of the emancipated slaves. The word “jurisdiction” was placed in that clause to mean “full allegiance.” There was a fear during that time, as there had been during the founding of this nation, of divided allegiance, or divided loyalties.

Natural Born Citizen is not defined in the Constitution primarily because it was common knowledge. People understood what the term “Natural Born Citizen” meant.

Today we have a number of terms that are understood without needing to be defined. One of those terms is “fast food.” Without needing a definition provided, most people know what “fast food” is. That does not mean the term will be readily understood by some historian of the future. He may ask himself, when he comes across that term in our literature, “Why is it their food was fast? Did it run quickly away from them?” To understand what “fast food” meant to us, he may have to refer to a number of writings before he finally comes across the definition.

One of the sources the Founding Fathers used when it came to establishing the definition of “Natural Born Citizen” was Vatell’s “Law of Nations.”

Vatell’s Law of Nations is mentioned once in the Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Clause 10, and it is capitalized - which suggests the mention of the Law of Nations to be a proper noun, thus supporting the argument that it is a direct reference to Vatell’s writings.

Recently, it was discovered that George Washington failed to return a couple library books to the New York City Library. One of those books was Vatell’s Law of Nations. Washington checked the book out in 1789, shortly after the Constitutional Convention, probably because of the heavy influence the definitions in Vatell’s Law of Nations played on the writing of the U.S. Constitution.

Benjamin Franklin owned three copies of the Law of Nations - two for the convention, and one for his personal use. He received those copies from the editor, Dumas, in 1775.

Vatell’s Law of Nations Section 212 indicates that to be a Natural Born Citizen both parents must be citizens at the time of the birth of the child. As with the Fourteenth Amendment, there was a fear of divided allegiance.

Article II also establishes that in order to be eligible for the presidency the candidate must be at least the age of 35. This requirement, reasoned the founders, would ensure that the immaturities of youth had passed away. Along with a relatively mature age, the Constitution indicates that the president must also have been a resident of the United States for the last fourteen years. This, once again, was a guard against divided loyalties.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

SOPA: Stop Online Piracy Act HR 3261 Opens Pandora's Box for Federal Intrusion of Internet

2012-01-18T10:03:00.000-08:00

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 gives the federal government the express power to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." In other words, the federal government has the authority to create patent and copyright programs in order to protect intellectual property.

The people behind the Stop Online Piracy Act are sincere enough, and SOPA is constitutional. The federal government has the authority to protect copyrights and patents. However, I do not trust the federal government, so I am torn over SOPA. They say they only want to establish a system to protect copyright infringement, but in turn can take down websites based on their own bureaucratic criteria. That is how tyranny begins. . . with the best of intentions.

The bill is described as being designed to "establish a system for taking down websites that the Justice Department determines to be dedicated to copyright infringement.”

Constitutionally, the federal government can pursue this law, yet I don't trust the federal government. If we give them the power to shut down websites due to copyright infringement, how long before they start shutting down sites over their own arbitrary reasons.

I would prefer that copyrights and patents were protected by individual enforcement, but what if it is a big corporation that stole the copyright of a smaller entity? How does the smaller individual entity survive the rigors of court against a huge corporation?

It is a fine line that SOPA dances on. It is necessary, and constitutional, yet opens the door for the federal government to intrude on the last true frontier of free speech.

The problem is that peer to peer sites, and the like, have disregarded copyright laws, and the piracy of copyrighted material has reached an incredible level. The sites are often offshore, or out of country, making it impossible to legally go after them. SOPA will allow the federal government to disallow those sites from being accessible in The States.

Once again, it is necessary, yet a frightening proposition.

It is not a matter of whether or not the federal government "can" pursue legislation like SOPA. . . it is a matter of whether or not they "should."

I am torn. They can, but I fear what the federal government will do once this power is in their hands.

That is where the American People comes in. It is our duty to police them, make sure the federal government does not go farther than the Stop Online Piracy Act allows. We must not be complacent, or else we will get exactly what we deserve.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

SOPA, Freedom, and the Invisible War - Tech Crunch

Political Pistachio

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GOP works to approve Keystone Pipeline

Obama and the Saddest Place on Earth

Romney win in Florida does not put nails in anyone's coffin

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Constitutional Revival and the Real Concerns of Conservative Americans

Thomas Jefferson's Opinion of Obama's Class Warfare

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Understanding the Eligibility Issue, Regarding Obama, Rubio. . .

I Guess I Will Be The One To Say It. Newt, You Are A Liar!

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Green Technology Failure: Chevy Dealers Refuse Volts

Religion of Evolution versus The Facts

Constitution Study Radio - Myth #13: Anchor Babies are American Citizens

Santorum Challenges Romney on Obamacare

Understanding the States' Right of Nullification: Thomas Jefferson's Draft of the Kentucky Resolution

I. Jefferson’s Draft

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 30: 1 January 1798 to 31 January 1799(Princeton University Press, 2003), 536-43

[before 4 Oct. 1798]

Founding Truth of the U.S. Constitution with Douglas V. Gibbs and Loki

Constitution Corner Joins Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs

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Hugo Chavez's Daughter Flashes Greenbacks

Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty

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John Adams: Learning from History

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Obama Lied About 3 Million Jobs

Rush Limbaugh Callers Defend Newt Gingrich

Temecula Constitution Class: Authorities Granted, and Not Granted

The Danger of Central Governments Lies In Human Nature

Our Children, and the History of America

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Gabrielle Giffords Resignation, Standing Ovation From Colleagues

Complaining about the flaws of the GOP Candidates

Wild Bill for America: Obama the Racist President

Man's Best Friend

Obama's Last State of the Union Speech

Angry Liberal Middle Finger

Flawed Republicans Are Still Better Than Obama

Desperate Democrats Calling for Lower Voting Age

Representative Giffords To Step Down from Congress

Liberal Idiocy Regarding Newt Responded To

Rand Paul Detained by TSA

Solar Storm Striking Earth

Enemy Expatriation Act - Another Assault on Freedom?

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Israel: Palestinians Fire on West Bank Patrol

Abiotic Oil Means that Peak Oil Is A Lie

Allen West for Vice President

Fast and Furious Gun Scandal Subpoena Issued

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United States May Close Embassy in Syria

The Death of Joe Paterno, and Final Words About the Sandusky Sex Scandal

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South Carolina Primary, Supreme Court Decisions, and more on Constitution Radio with Douglas V. Gibbs

The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 30: 1 January 1798 to 31 January 1799
(Princeton University Press, 2003), 536-43