Glenn Beck Restoring Honor Rally Captures the Attention of Both The Right, and the Left

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally in Washington DC attracted thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people (some have even told me hundreds of thousands). Nationwide, at rallies designed to piggy-back on Beck's rally, millions gathered. The purpose of the rally was to call on history, and God, to help restore our nation's honor. Sarah Palin, in her speech at the rally, echoed Beck's sentiments: "We Must Restore America!"

The Left, and self-proclaimed black leaders Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, were upset because the event was planned to occur on the same day as the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. They held their own rally at the same time at another location.

Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King spoke at Glenn Beck's rally. . .

Which brings up the thought: Was Martin Luther King about bringing civil rights to blacks? Or to all Americans?

Beck's rally has the Democrats in a panic. Glenn Beck, Alveda King, and Sarah Palin exercised their right to free speech and their freedom of assembly. These actions by the people place the "ruling party" in a precarious position, because the leftists have been accusing the Tea Party of having racist ties. But this rally by Beck, which has a Tea Party aura about it, and has been supported by Tea Party groups, embraces King's teachings, and were enthusiastic about Alveda King's presence at the rally.

The Left has been calling a movement open to all races racist. . . an obvious attack with nothing but political motivation attached.

Update: The number coming in is that 800,000 attended the rally! Wow.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

King's niece speaks at Beck Rally - MSNBC

Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" Rally Draws Thousands - ABC News

Sarah Palin at Glenn Beck Rally: "We Must Restore America!" - CBS News

Investigators Wonder if "Beat Whitey Night" was Racially Motivated

By Douglas V. Gibbs

At the Iowa State Fair a group of black assailants attacked a white fairgoer, announcing that it was "Beat Whitey Night." The victim suffered numerous injuries to the eyes, cheekbones, and nose. Police investigators are investigating whether or not the attacks were racially motivated.

Uh, some common sense here! Yes, of course it was racially motivated.

Unfortunately, racism exists in more than just white people. However, for whatever reason, our system has been convinced that only white, heterosexual males can be racist.

Just another way of dividing and conquering the American People. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Beat Whitey Night at the Iowa State Fair - The Smoking Gun

Obama Stops Prosecution of USS Cole Attackers

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The trial of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the USS Cole Bomber, has been shelved by Barack Obama's minions.

Obama is not a fan of Military Tribunals. He is too worried that the terrorists may not receive what he thinks is a fair trial. However, after a lot of public backlash regarding trying terrorists in civilian court, Obama and team decided it would be in the best interest to reform Military Tribunals.

Then, as the USS Cole case sat in wait, almost a decade after al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in Yemen, the Obama administration has halted prosecution of the alleged coordinator of the suicide mission that killed 17 sailors and wounded dozens.

The filing reads: "no charges are either pending or contemplated ... in the near future" against 45-year-old Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

U.S. halts prosecution of al-Qaeda suspect in USS Cole attack - USA Today

Conservative Talk Radio. . . On the Internet

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Yours Truly, Douglas V. Gibbs, co-hosts the Founding Truth at 5:00 pm Pacific to 7:00 pm Pacific every Saturday, and hosts the Political Pistachio Radio Revolution from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm Pacific every Saturday.

Join us.

Dow Drops Below 10,000, Fell 2,000 Points in a Week and a Half

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Once again, the Dow Industrial Average dipped below 10,000. Quickly, with manipulation by the bankers and government, the numbers recovered. The artificial stimulation through government stimulus and manipulation is getting ready to be exposed for the failure it is.

Our financial system, left to the free market, experiences drops and rises naturally. When the system is artificially controlled the drops are delayed, and are ultimately worsened. By next year the stock market will experience greater drops, and longer periods of lows. If the artificial manipulation by the government is not stopped, a crash is inevitable.

I am not predicting a crash within the next year, but the longer we continue along this path of tax, spend, and stimulus, the greater the likelihood the stock market will drop to record lows, and that it will take years, if not a decade or so, to recover.

Lowering spending, reducing the national debt, and dropping taxes are the only way to reduce the gap between revenues and expenses, and to allow the free market to flourish. And the sooner we take action, the better. The longer we wait, the more often we will see things like the Dow dropping below 10,000. And by next year, the stock market may not be able to rebound so easily, and may drop as low as 6,000.

Last year Vice President Biden said that we have to "spend money to keep from going bankrupt." Such is the mentality of the Left. And as they continue to spend and spend and spend, our economy is slowly worsening. The true damage is outside of our view, however. Spending more money to avoid bankruptcy is a bizarre technique, but nonetheless, the liberal left believes that spending incredible amounts of tax payer money, while taking more and more control over the private sector, will save us. In reality, it is sending us into a direction of becoming like Greece. And if we go too far, only a plan similar to Greece's austerity may save us from complete collapse.

What we are experiencing is the greatest Ponzi scheme ever created. Ponzi schemes are pyramid schemes that work on the "rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul" principle. As money from new investors is used to pay off earlier investors, a greater demand for new money is created, and eventually the whole scheme collapses upon itself.

Like Ponzi schemes, entitlement programs use redistribution to take money in from some, to pay the benefits of others. As long as enough tax payers pay into the program, the system appears to work. As the system damages the private sector, in order to keep up, the amount being payed by the remaining "rich" must increase. To accomplish such, the Left proclaims they must do so in order to "pay their fair share," even though over 90% of the taxes are already being paid by the people who are considered to be achievers. Such schemes are not sustainable. As soon as the amount of benefits being paid out exceeds the amount of money coming in, the entire system collapses.

We are already there.

To try to solve the problem, the nation went off of the gold standard so that they could create fiat currency. Every nation on this planet now operates on fiat currency. Fiat currency has no value backing it up, and only holds any value as long as holders of the currency has faith in the government that issued the money.

As the tax and spend policies proceed, and the dollar steadily decreases in value because of the increase of money without value backing it in the system, the American People are losing faith in the dollar. One of the results of such a loss in confidence is what we are beginning to see in the stock market. The purchasing power of the dollar is in steady decline, and is slowly becoming essentially worthless. Such a drastic increase in the money supply through government stimulus programs is leading us in the direction of hyperinflation, and a collapse of our economy could follow.

Fiat currency is a crisis, unless the increase of money in the system without value attached is diminished, and unless our system begins to be operated on sound economic principles. This would mean cutting spending drastically. This would mean government letting go of their control over the system, cutting back on excessive regulations, and creating a positive environment that includes a cut in taxes so that businesses and individuals can keep more of what they make. Creating such an environment would enable the participants in the free market to achieve, and allow the success of those willing to pursue achievement to jump start the economy, creating jobs, and creating commerce.

But this must happen NOW. We are moving rapidly toward the line of no turning back, and we must stop the madness before we cross that line. Otherwise, our only salvation would be complete default, and a massive period of depression (of which we have already entered into).

Turning this around, and growing the economy, however, won't be enough. As the economy expands, government brings in more tax revenue, and then acts compelled to spend those monies on various programs, eventually encouraging the government to create a national debt and deficit spending. Expanding our gross domestic product does not gives us the allowance to spend more. It is all the more reason to continue to reduce government spending to levels that are within Constitutional authority. In other words, the federal government should only be involved with spending money on issues that are within their Constitutionally given powers.

The U.S. Constitution gives the federal government its authorities in Article I, Section 8, and in any subsequent amendments. The powers of the federal government are few, and directly connected to the protection, preservation, and promotion of the union. . . and nothing more.

Article I, Section 8 allows the federal government to tax (originally to tax the States, and foreign imports, not to tax the citizens directly with an income tax), to borrow money (as necessary, usually in the case of funding a war operation), to regulate commerce (by acting as a mediator to ensure that commerce flowed more easily, not to restrict and control commerce), to establish a uniform rule of naturalization (note that immigration is not mentioned there, and is only referred to in Article I, Section 9), to create uniform laws of bankruptcy (to ensure the citizens were treated equally in the States over this issue), Coin money (note that it did not authorize "reserve note" styles of currency), fix a standard of weights and measures (once again so that the union was preserved through uniformity), provide punishment for counterfeiting (if coining money and issuing securities was to be a federal power, then surely punishment for counterfeiting such would need to be a federal authority as well), to establish Post Offices and post roads (note that it allows for the federal government establishing post roads, but gives the federal government no more power over the roadways, i.e. building, maintaining, or funding), Patents and Copyrights (to promote the union, and protect the creativity and innovation of its citizens), create the lower federal courts, define and punish offenses on the high seas, declare war (executive branch is given the power to wage war, of which can be checked by Congress through the funding process), raise and support armies (for protection of the union), provide and maintain a navy (for protection of the union), create rules for the military forces, be able to call forth militias to protect the union from insurrections and repel invasions, create and maintain a government district that will be the seat of government (Washington DC), and to make laws necessary and proper to carry out their constitutional powers.

Article I, Section 9 also allows Congress to prohibit the import of slaves, and immigration, through legislation. (Section nine is a prohibitive article that primarily tells the federal government what it may not do).

Article 4, Section 4 requires the federal government to protect the States from invasion (by doing things like securing the border).

One will note that nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it allow the federal government power over anything that has to do with the health care industry, transportation, to create a centralized bank or dictate to the banks how they do business, providing entitlement programs for the people who fail to achieve or live up to their personal responsibilities, and such. Also note that if any of those things are not prohibited to the States, according to the 10th Amendment, the States "do" have the authority over much of those issues.

My point is this. Until the federal government backs off, disassociates itself with issues it does not have the authority over, cuts spending, cuts taxes, and becomes the limited entity it was originally designed to be, we will continue to flounder economically, and be at the mercy of an ever-expanding federal government. . . that could become even more centralized than it is now, and ultimately could become tyrannical.

The line in the sand is here and now. The future of this nation depends on it being turned around immediately. Otherwise. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Dow closes below 10,000 amid investor concerns - Christian Science Monitor

Dow Jones Averages - Dow Jones Indexes

The Economy Should Not Be A Rube Goldberg Device

By: J.J. Jackson

Rube Goldberg, for those of you who are unaware, was a cartoonist who is probably best known for his satirical sketches depicting overly complex and convoluted machines designed to perform simple and mundane tasks. In one of his cartoons he shows a contraption for a self-operated napkin. The man sitting at the table enjoying his soup lifts his spoon with one hand which pulls on a string which then jerks a ladle that in turn tosses a cracker to a parrot which then jumps to catch the treat upsetting a bowl of seeds on the opposite end of the perch. These seeds then fall into a bucket putting extra weight on a chord that opens a cigar lighter setting off a firework which cuts a string and allows the pendulum of a clock to swing back and forth. At the end of that pendulum is a napkin which passes in front of the mouth of the wearer and wipes his mouth. Of course the fact that such a device was not necessary because the man’s other hand is not doing anything except sitting on the table is not missed by anyone paying attention. All this man had to do was pick up his napkin in his other hand to wipe his mouth rather than wear such a funny device.

Such overly complex contraptions have become known as Rube Goldberg devices and every year there are even contests held in his honor where people construct machines with go through a myriad of often unrelated steps to do simple tasks such as turning on a light switch. The point is to be not only humorous, although that certainly does happen, but to show off engineering skills because these complex contraptions rely on all sorts of natural forces and are not as easy to construct as one might imagine. Often times debugging these contraptions to make them work properly is more of the trick than anything else.

Over the course of the years the American economy has become one huge Rube Goldberg device as well. It should not be one, but it is.

Try to get something that you want or need in life and think about everything that is being done so that you can buy said thing. For the sake of example, let’s look at the often used and universal example of the widget.

A man wants a widget. So how does he get one? Well, to the untrained eye it might appear that he just goes down to the local widget dealership, finds one he likes and then pays for it and drives off the lot. The only part of the Rube Goldberg device he is seeing however is the napkin wiping the mouth of the soup eating man. What is behind the scenes is actually much more complex and overly so.

In order for him to actually get the widget it requires much, much more to happen. Most of this is unnecessary. First the person that wants to build widgets has to apply for things such as business licenses and approvals from possibly several government authorities. If any one of these groups refuse for any reason then no widgets will be had. Then the person looking to make widgets often has to go and get a loan in order to capitalize his or her business. This requires going to the bank and, once again, filling out all sorts of applications; many of which are government required forms which add another layer of bureaucratic mess to the mix. Then once the loan is acquired the businessperson needs to build their facility. Once again this requires filling out forms and permits galore for local, state and federal authorities. The process often includes the government making demands, some reasonable but most wholly unreasonable, of the businessman or woman which affect the overall design and cost of the soon to be built widget plant. There are inspections to make sure everything meets with the government’s approval and so on.

Oh, but that is not then end of the Rube Goldberg device. Nope. There is more!

When it comes to the business owner hiring his or her workforce even more unnecessary mechanisms are added to the process. Every employee hired not just has to meet the qualifications of being competent in their job and capable of contributing to the making of a quality widget but also fall under government guidelines as to the color of their skin and even their gender. You have to have enough women and minorities after all ... even if there are not enough that are qualified for the positions that are applying or if other races and genders are just by the reality of it all more qualified for reasons that have nothing to do with race or gender. Then once these people are hired the widget maker has to abide by all sorts of labor laws and take a percentage of each worker’s paycheck to placate government and its lust for dollars.

And if you think this is the end of the road for our widget making contraption, think again. There are taxes paid in transportation costs for every gallon of fuel spent and mandated by governments both large and small as well as retail licenses for the distributors that sell the widgets. But let’s also not forget all the ongoing fees for lawyers and compliance officers within the company that spend every hour of their work day solely making sure that the company does not run afoul of some government regulation or another and that must defend the company if such a violation is even suspected.

Only once all this is accounted for can our widget desiring person actually go down to their local widget dealership and purchase the widget of their dreams. Only once government hands are appeased at every turn and a cost is paid do the shelves or lots become filled with bright, shiny widgets for sale.

Much like the often problematic Rube Goldberg devices each of these cogs introduces a higher level of complexity to the entire system. Each new cog also introduces a point of potential failure where the decision of just one bureaucrat can cause there to be no widgets available for purchase. Time and again we see that somewhere along the line one or more of these cogs fails to work properly and the whole system grinds to a halt. When the one that is currently broken finally gets fixed another invariably rears its ugly head to threaten the whole process once again.

Sometimes, although rarely, certain of these cogs are indeed necessary. Government does have a very limited role in making sure that the general welfare of its citizens is maintained and promoted. A local municipality is perfectly within its right to suggest that a busy and noisy factory which would run twenty-four hours a day is not appropriate to be built in the heart of a residential neighborhood for example.

The problem arises when all government is stacked on top of itself. When the regulations that businesses which drive our economy must deal with are looked at cumulatively and when they start to impede upon the ability of the citizenry to obtain the goods and services they want and can afford and which infringe upon no rights of others is when everything starts to get messy. It is when the government at some level decrees that the busy and noisy factory to run twenty-four hours a day, ready to produce a good the people desire, cannot be built at all either by absolute rule or by cumulative regulation that makes its building impossible that everything has failed.

When government gets involved the level of cost always increases. Those costs are always passed on to the end user who is lowest on the ladder, with the least skill and the smallest ability to pass on those costs to another. Eventually however when the Rube Goldberg device becomes too complicated all together and the costs becomes too high there is nothing left from anyone. Not the business owner. And certainly not the consumer.

The business owner walks away. And the consumer is left yearning for widgets.

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

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 "http://www.examiner.com/x-35438-Pittsburgh-Conservative-Examiner">Pittsburgh Conservative Examiner for Examiner.com. He is also the owner of The Right Things - Conservative T-shirts & Gifts http://www.cafepress.com/rightthings. His weekly commentary along with exclusives not available anywhere else can be found at http://www.libertyreborn.com

George Steinbrenner avoids Estaticide

By Kevin J. Price

With whatever complaints you had about George Steinbrenner, you have to be impressed with his timing. Because of dying in 2010 and not 2011, he saved approximately $600 million. For quite some time I have been warning people about a concept I call "estaticide." I describe "estaticide" as the extermination of individuals because of the punishing tax implications. That is, people who feel they need to die early in order to be able to have something to leave their loved ones. It is not a serious reality, but I'm sure many Americans will think twice about when they die when they look at people like Steinbrenner. If Steinbrenner has passed away in 2011, his estate would have faced a crippling tax.

The situation we have coming in 2011 is due to an interesting path of recent tax history. In 2001, President Bush wanted to provide relief to families that were devastated by the death of a family member. It is bad enough that mom or dad have passed away, without picking their pockets in the process. This led to the creation of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 2001 (which modified a similar act in 1997). This law would lead to a gradual increase in the tax credits associated with estate taxes and a reduction in the maximum rate until 2010 in which the tax would be repealed. The bad news is that the rate would go back to 2002 levels in 2011. That means the rate would go from zero to a maximum rate of 50 percent overnight.

In spite of the fact that it appears the Steinbrenner estate can breathe a sigh of relief, no estate of people passing away in 2010 may ever be completely out of the woods with the behavior of the current Congress. Remember, this is the same group that passed a tax totaling an entire bonus on AIG executives and it was done retroactively. Ronald Acucutt, an estate tax attorney with McGuire Woods told the Wall Street Journal that, "Not only is the future uncertain, but the past is also. We have no idea what the law is."

The National Center for Policy Analysis notes that the story of Steinbrenner paints an interesting estate tax picture:

· Steinbrenner's estimated net worth is $1.1 billion according to Forbes.

· Steinbrenner was a 55 percent owner of the Yankees, which includes the team, the YES Network and the new Yankee Stadium, as well as several homes and a stud farm in Florida, according to Forbes.

· Forbes estimated that the Yankees, which Steinbrenner acquired in 1973 for a mere $10 million, are worth $1.6 billion. However, the team is extremely leveraged because of debt from the new stadium.

· Even the most casual observer can see how significant the savings were for the Steinbrenner family.

So back to my concern about "estaticide." This is, again, the idea of people mysteriously passing just before the tax laws change in 2011. Stranger things have happened. Here's a new twist on it: what if the federal government keeps terminally ill people on life support until 2011? If that does happen, it will be one of the only times we will ever see government

Recently I had a great interview with Gerri Willis of the Fox News Network on this issue. Check out that conversation here.
--
Kevin Price
Host, Price of Business, M-F at 11 am on CBS Radio News
Frequently found on Strategy Room at FoxNews.com
Syndicated columnist whose articles appear on a variety of media outlets.
His http://BizPlusBlog.com/ is ranked in the top 1 percent of all blogs by Technorati.
Kevin Price's Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/PriceofBusiness

Bob Chapman of International Forecaster Joins Political Pistachio Radio for an Economic Update

Join us live at 7pm Pacific, or catch the archive later, at BlogTalkRadio.com/PoliticalPistachio

Government and GPS - Tracking Your Moves

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

That is the bizarre — and scary — rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants — with no need for a search warrant.

Read The Rest at: TIME

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Obama Shelves Prosecution of USS Cole Bomber

Breaking: Obama administration has shelved prosecution of USS Cole bomber... details later. - - Political Pistachio

The Failure Called Liberalism

By Douglas V. Gibbs

Housing sales in July plunged 25.5 percent below the level of a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. The Commerce Department reported that July sales fell 12.4% from June and by 32.4% compared to July 2009. The annual rate of 276,000 new units sold is the lowest since 1963, when government records were first kept.

Apparently, July's numbers received no kick start from the home buyer tax credit.

Liberalism has failed.

Cash for Clunkers was a failed program, American auto sales numbers are plunging, unemployment remains high.

Liberalism has failed.

Government only moves money around. It creates nothing. Government cannot create wealth, jobs in the private industry, or business growth. The best thing government can do to allow the economy to turn around is get out of the way. Cut taxes, and eliminate regulations that stifle growth.

Government spending does not stimulate economic growth. Government spending moves money around, and keeps it from where it is really needed - in the private sector.

Free Market principles is the necessary engine for a flourishing economy.

But as liberalism fails us, and we are at risk of becoming yet another Greece, the liberal left is too stubborn to see the reality of their failure. . .

Or, this destruction of the American Economy is being done on purpose.

How else can they force our system into a Marxist system? Destroy, divide, conquer, and change. . .

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Housing Market Plunged in July, Fueling Anxiety - New York Times

Liberalism is Failing - Heritage Foundation

Obamacare Lies

Get Liberty

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

ABC News Staffer Harasses anti-mosque Protester

He was very aggressive, disrespectful and condescending; apparently, he did not like the gentlemen’s answers about Shariah and pushed the point: “Why do you feel threatened? What are you afraid of? Why can’t you answer my questions?”

Read About It at Big Peace

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Anchor Babies, and the 14th Amendment

"We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people." -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1919.

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The first sentence of the 14th Amendment declares that "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."

Thus, the argument for the citizenship for anchor babies.

Or is it?

The part of that clause that is often overlooked is in the words: "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," which means being born or naturalized in the United States is not necessarily enough to be a citizen.

To understand the context, one must be a student of history, and of the writings of the authors of the amendment.

Despite the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War, after hostilities ended the emancipated slaves were not receiving the rights and privileges of American citizens as they should have been. The former slaves were present in the United States "legally," and because they were here legally they were "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," but they were still not receiving any assurance of equal rights.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was created in the hopes of correcting the problem. Some of the language in the Civil Rights Act of 1866 states, "All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States. ... All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other."

The definition of "persons within the jurisdiction of the United States" in that act was all persons at the time of its passage, born in the United States, including all slaves and their offspring.

However, fearing that a future Congress may tinker with the act, the 14th Amendment to our Constitution was proposed, which upon ratification, would protect the provision of the 1866 Act from legislatures and the courts.

Michigan Sen. Jacob Howard, one of two principal authors of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment (the Citizenship Clause), noted that its provision, "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," excluded American Indians who had tribal nationalities, and "persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."

The second author of the Citizenship Clause, Illinois Sen. Lyman Trumbull, added that "subject to the jurisdiction of the United States" meant "not owing allegiance to anybody else."

So, understanding history, and the intention of the authors of the clause, it is clear that the clause specifically intends that those who are not born to American citizens have no birthright to citizenship just because they simply were born inside the borders of this country.

Case law, via an activist judiciary, "interprets" the language to mean something it doesn't, and by altering the meaning to be something that is not in line with the original intent, as they have done with the rest of the Constitution, we have a constitutional crisis upon us that includes an invasion across the border that is literally being wrongly justified with a misinterpreted clause from the U.S. Constitution.

Anchor babies, who are not citizens of the United States using the appropriate definition of the 14th Amendment, are said to be 8% of births in the United States annually.

But these babies are not subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. because they were born of illegal immigrants who owe their allegiance to their home countries.

Therefore, if we are truly going to follow the law, when illegal immigrants are sent home, their children born inside America's borders need to go home with them.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Anchor babies 8% of births in U.S. annually - Examiner

14th Amendment: Is birthright citizenship really in the Constitution? - The Christian Science Monitor

Birthright Citizenship? - The Patriot Post

From the Commerce Clause, and Beyond

Tonight's Constitution Study will complete our discussion on the Commerce Clause, and continue to march through Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.

Join us in Temecula, California at 27498 Enterprise Cir. West at the Faith Armory gun shop classroom at 6:00 pm.

Hope to see you there!

Gulf Spill Bacteria Proves Earth's Resiliency

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was being labeled as the worst oil spill ever, and the Gulf Coast was going to be damaged so badly that. . .

Well, you know the hysterical rhetoric the liberal left environmental wackos were screaming.

To the Left's dismay, the Earth has shown an ability to heal itself.

Data collected months ago show populations of carbon-eating bacteria rising in parts of where it was believed was a plume of oil. Now, in the area where the bugs were collected, scientists 'do not see detectable oil.'

While trying to clean up the mess, scientists have discovered bacteria hard at work at cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico as well - and, doing a darn good job at it!

Populations of carbon-eating bacteria have increased where the oil is supposed to be in the water, and are literally eating the spill. Scientists have been looking for the oil, and haven't been able to find it - and now they have a partial answer as to why.

And once the oil is gone, the little buggers eat each other.

Talk about efficient and thorough.

But haven't conservatives been saying for years and years and years that the Earth was created to be resilient, and that humanity couldn't destroy it if we tried?

If the world is so resilient, then why do these environmental scientists always paint everything as doom and gloom? From global warming to the oil spill, each time these idiots have tried to paint an environmental crisis, they have been proven to be, well, idiots. So why continue their idiocy if they are proven wrong each time?

I suppose they think that if they throw enough balls of crap at the wall, eventually one will stick.

Environmentalists that pose as scientists have an agenda. They want more funding, because they base their living on purporting fear, and requiring federal money to prove it. . . even if there is nothing to prove.

I am not saying that we should not care about the planet. I am saying that Earth's ability to heal is way beyond what the leftist environmentalists are willing to admit.

The leftist environmentalists try to look like they care, so they make up environmental crises to prove it. Then, if you don't jump on their band wagon, despite their lack of any verifiable proof, you are considered uncaring, and will be attacked as small minded.

Why do they do this?

The real enemy to these people are not environmental disasters. Their enemy, in their eyes, is free enterprise, and a prosperous America. So, they blame every environmental disaster on free enterprise and/or a prosperous America. Every corporation, in their eyes, is an enemy of the environment, and a severe polluter. Therefore, they are all suspect.

Like man-made Global Warming, the assumed devastation of the BP oil spill turned out to be an environmental hoax. The environmental wackos tried to convince everyone that the Gulf Coast was toast. The damage would be decades long, and the clean up would be extremely costly. BP was demonized, oil rigs were shut down with a moratorium, and businesses were put into jeopardy by an overreacting media. The entire fishing industry was shut down. Oil tainted shrimp were searched for. Oil plumes throughout the water was searched for. Federal money was pumped into the situation, and BP was ordered to pay for every little thing that could be squeezed out of them.

But the leftist environmentalists couldn't find the oil plumes, the oil covered animals was a minor problem, and now it turns out that God's creation is healing itself with oil eating bacteria.

As with man-made global warming, the Left fed us a bunch of unproven pieces of "science", and were dead wrong. They wanted you to believe them without any doubt, and without questioning their so-called wisdom, rather than think for yourself and realize that the oil spilling into the Gulf was a thimble full in comparison to the size of the Gulf. They tried to buffalo us into believing their view of the world, and the facts slapped them upside the head. Their junk science was wrong, once again.

The oil spill's environmental damage has turned out to be insignificant. Those educated experts were fundamentally and profoundly wrong. And if they are wrong about man-made global warming, and they are wrong about the catastrophic mess the Gulf was supposed to be, then one must ask, "What else are they terribly wrong about?"

It would be wise for us to hold the environmentalist's statements with serious scrutiny. It is obvious that they haven't the slightest idea what they are talking about. They are never challenged by the media, or by other scientists (that perhaps are too scared to talk), and when we challenge them they proclaim we have no idea what we are talking about - yet they were wrong on man-made global warming, and on the BP oil spill. They have no credibility. We must ask common sense questions, and not swallow every piece of garbage that is presented to us.

Scientific elitism, it turns out, has nothing to do with the environment, nor anything to do with science. They push their junk science because of their political agenda. They make money doing what they do, and ultimately they hope that you will come under government control. . . for the good of the planet.

Environmentalism is the new communism. The environment is a way for the leftists to advance their political agenda of central planning and an ever expanding, intrusive government. What better way to get everyone under control than to do so by subordinating one's private property rights to environmental concerns?

In Murrieta you can't by any land because environmentalists have blue-lined everything. In Hemet if you run over a kangaroo rat you could be fined thousands of dollars. California SWPPP has determined that dirt is a hazardous material, and construction companies can be fined millions for dirt getting into the gutters, and ultimately into the storm drains.

The Earth is a wonderful creation. The Earth is incredibly resilient. We couldn't destroy the planet if we tried. It can fix itself in amazing ways that we are still trying to understand. We should be good stewards of the planet, but we should not ruin our ability to live because the environmentalists say so. Simple put, they are wrong. . . or are incredible liars.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

Bacteria seem to be doing a good cleanup job in gulf - Los Angeles Times

HELMER: Global warmists abandoned fact for fancy - Washington Times

How to Get Rid of Fannie and Freddie

By Robert Romano

Recently, Americans for Limited Government (ALG) interviewed former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae, Edward Pinto, to get his thoughts on how best to bring an end to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage giants that helped cause the financial crisis, and to see what impact that would have on the housing market.

Pinto recently wrote an oped for the Wall Street Journal outlining his proposal, and also published a new forensic study explaining in indisputable detail how government policies, including those of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) helped to cause the crisis by weakening underwriting standards, lowering down payments, and generally degrading the quality of credit in the U.S.

"We got into this problem over 15 to 20 years through HUD, it's going to take us time to get out of it because they've left us in a terrible mess. We need to back out of it just like one backs out of any alley," Pinto said, explaining that it must be done "slowly and deliberately."

Pinto noted that securities sold by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are only selling for a slightly higher rate than treasuries right now. "The spreads are narrow to Treasury because they've got the unlimited backing of the federal government. They're not explicitly guaranteed by the federal government, but there is no limit on the amount of money that the Treasury can give to Fannie and Freddie to back them."

Pinto said there would be little change in the spreads even if the Treasury did explicitly guarantee the securities issued by Fannie and Freddie, because investors have already priced in the guarantee. He also noted that rates on Ginnie Mae securities, which underwrite FHA loans, are nearly identical to Fannie Mae securities: "The fact that one has the full faith and credit of the government and the other has a contractual agreement that says the federal government will give an unlimited amount of money [then] the market considers those to be about the same thing."

At a Treasury-hosted conference by financial industry leaders, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said "I believe there is a strong case to be made for a carefully designed guarantee in a reformed system, with the objective of providing a measure of stability in access to mortgages, even in future economic downturns."

Of course, that differed significantly from prior statements. In March he wrote to Congressman Scott Garrett that "By statute, all obligations and securities issued by the GSEs must include a statement that makes clear that such obligations and securities are not guaranteed by the United States and do not constitute a debt or obligation of the United States."

Now, as Pinto predicted in his Journal oped, the Treasury appears to be moving in the direction of an explicit guarantee of securities. How would it work? "The way any guarantee works, usually, you're guaranteeing the timely repayment of principal and interest. Which means that if the mortgage underlying the security is delinquent, you as the investor in the mortgage-backed security still get your payment when you're supposed to." Which is yet another taxpayer bailout, despite promises by the Obama Administration that the Dodd-Frank bill ended bailouts.

But what if there were no explicit guarantee? What if Treasury came forward tomorrow and said there would be no more bailouts on securities issued by Fannie and Freddie? "The government has said that whatever's out there is covered," Pinto said of the $5.5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee. In 2008, the companies were placed into conservatorship, effectively throwing the full faith and credit behind the securities they issued in all but name.

"They're hard-pressed to undo that because they've already announced it. They have an agreement with Fannie and Freddie, that it has an unlimited amount [of backing] until the end of 2012, and then another $275 billion after that," Pinto explained. "They could say we're not going to allow Fannie and Freddie to issue any more securities but that doesn't do anything about the ones that are already outstanding."

That's because while the Treasury's credit expires at the end of 2012, that backing is currently unlimited. Whatever losses the companies experience between now and then, taxpayers will foot the bill, all without any appropriation by Congress. And then after that, as Pinto noted, they can get up to $275 billion extra for any further losses.

Pinto proposes "diminishing the size of Fannie and Freddie by reducing the maximum loan they can buy, which makes them become a smaller and smaller part of the market, which then allows the private sector to move in behind and build capacity" by absorbing new MBS.

But it won't be easy. "They've gotten us into such a pickle here that it's very hard to unwind it. It needs to be unwound, but it needs to be unwound slowly. They've created a mess through all this low-income housing," he explained.

For comparison purposes, we asked hypothetically what if the Treasury sold Fannie and Freddie securities without any guarantee at all. "What Treasury could say is we're going to start selling $1 trillion [of mortgage-backed securities] and there is no guarantee. Because Treasury's the holder so they can wave it."

However, he instead proposes that "market normalization should focus on new MBS issues rather undoing past issues," which he said "will run off over time on their own."

"You've got two issues," he explained. "One is how quickly do they sell them because there's a liquidity issue of if you put all $1 trillion on the market that's going to result in one price. If they sold $50 billion every other week for a year that would be another."

Pinto said that privately-issued securities, if they lacked the implied or explicit backing of taxpayers would "have to be at a higher rate. The problem with Fannie and Freddie was that they had insufficient capital because rates were too low." Therefore, any new dealers of MBS would need to be able to cover the actual risk the securities pose without any government backing, as opposed to how the risk is currently disguised with government backing.

Pinto explained that if done without any government support, "an investor would demand a higher rate than normal, meaning if you've got an MBS that exists today that yields 5 percent net, and the investor wanted 6 percent, you'd have to sell them at a discount in order to get them to 6 percent."

But, said Pinto, "not a tremendous discount, because rates have dropped in the meantime." Because the Treasury assumed control of the companies when rates were above 5 percent, and they have since dropped, Pinto suggested that now would be a good time to begin unwinding the companies.

"Today is actually, in the scheme of things, a better time to [withdraw] than most. This is almost a gift to get down to 4 ½ percent. Nobody predicted it, nobody expected it." He noted that "anything lower than 7 percent is lower than virtually the entire time in the last 37 years except for a couple of years."

Pinto said that even if rates went up to 5 ¼ percent as government began withdrawing, "that's what everybody was happy with six months ago. 5 ¼ percent was considered a very good rate."

So, better for the government to begin withdrawing now from the housing market, when the nation is at the bottom of the market. Pinto foresees perhaps a ¾ to 1 percent increase if such a withdrawal began now, but only "if you do it slowly and in a measured way." He suggested that it might start out closer to 1 percent, but would shrink to about ½ percent, "which, given all of the risks that you have [with] a government guarantee, it's a small price to be paid."

Given the choice, the American people would without a doubt opt for a more sound credit system that is properly capitalized because risk was properly assessed. "As soon as you start having price controls on things, which is what we do with interest rates, it makes it very hard, it makes it political. Interest rates should not be political, they should be market-based."

Is it worth having the government jeopardize the entire economy just to have slightly lower interest rates? Pinto said that those slightly lower rates are "the best they offer, and the worst is you basically build systemic risk into the system because you have so many weak loans from borrowers who have no skin in the game, and the government is pushing the exact buttons that they pushed last time which got us into this mess."

Alternatively, Pinto advised that the economy could be on much sounder footing if Fannie and Freddie were unwound. "I happen to be in the school that says, if you're an alcoholic, the first thing you have to do is stop taking the next drink. We have to wean the market off of high leverage, low down payment loans, and we've done the exact opposite. We haven't allowed the market to get to a natural level."

Pinto added, "The problem is that we've been running the system with inadequate capital, both on the part of the home buyer, who had insufficient skin in the game, the down payments are too low, and on the part of the investors in the system, Fannie and Freddie and everybody else had too little capital in the system to make it robust."

To address the lack of capital in the system, Pinto opined that "you then have to have a return on capital, which is how you get compensated for putting capital at risk. And so, you'd have to have higher interest rates" both on securities and the mortgages they back.

With sales of existing homes plummeting, along with prices, over 14 million unemployed Americans, and consumer spending slowing, all despite the Federal Reserve's near-zero interest rate policy, monetary stimulus, and Congress' fiscal stimulus, now is the time consider tried and true methods of thrift and savings to help the economy recover on more solid footing.

There is, after all a choice — an alternative to an ever-expanding government place in the marketplace. Market-based interest rates, as opposed to artificially lowered rates by government, can be used to begin squeezing the risk out of the system and to recapitalize.

And Fannie and Freddie can be unwound, larger down payments can be required, and banks can stop issuing and underwriting risky loans. And it need not be done with taxpayer backing in the future. As Pinto wrote in his Journal piece, "the road to housing hell may have been paved by the government, the road back will be built by the private sector."

Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau.

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