Monday, December 31, 2012
Demand A Plan - Demand Celebrities Go F*CK Themselves!
These are whores that sell violence. The selling and ownership of firearms pales when compare to how these people contribute to the culture of violence. Gun ownership is about security and self defense. These Hollywood whores are the cunts that glorify and promote violence, not gun owners. Their hypocrisy is so disgusting.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
ALERT: Legislation Details: Senate To Ban Hundreds of Semiautomatic Rifles, Handguns, Shotguns, Magazines; Includes Fingerprint Registration Requirements by Mac Slavo and Ed Thomas
ALERT: Legislation Details: Senate To Ban Hundreds of Semiautomatic Rifles, Handguns, Shotguns, Magazines; Includes Fingerprint Registration Requirements by Mac Slavo and Ed Thomas
For anyone who may have thought Senator Feinstein and her colleagues in Congress were bluffing about coming firearms legislation that would restrict the sale, transfer and possession of certain firearms, think again.
A summary of the proposed legislation has been made available, and it’s a whopper.
Among outright banning 120 ‘assault’ related firearms (such as AR-15′s and AK-47′s), the bill will also target any weapon that utilizes a “detachable magazine,” as well as any magazine with a capacity of over ten rounds, which would include semi-automatic handguns and shotguns.
Moreover, if you already own a firearm or modification that ends up on the ban list, you will be required under Federal law to register that gun, complete with a background check, fingerprinting and local law enforcement verification.
Those who have recently purchased firearms that would fall under the ban may soon find Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) at their door looking to confiscate ‘illegal’ weapons or engage in home searches for illegal accessories like ‘high capacity’ magazines (over 10 rounds), flash suppressors, pistol grips, and bullet buttons (a feature designed to circumvent ‘fixed’ magazine laws in states like California).
The following is a summary of the proposed Assault Weapons Legislation:
Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
120 specifically-named firearms
Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
Background check of owner and any transferee;
Type and serial number of the firearm;
Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration
What Is an Assault Rifle? (You’ve probably been lied to):
Ammunition, namely the purchase of bulk ammunition, has not been mentioned in the legislation summary. However, previous reports indicate that the purchase of large amounts of ammunition through the internet and directly from dealers may also be in Congress’ sights.
Are Americans prepared to give up their guns?
.
The lock-down is coming and it’s going to start when Congress reconvenes on January 3, 2013.
Many Americans, who have no concept of why the Second Amendment exists in the first place, will accept it without protest.
For anyone who may have thought Senator Feinstein and her colleagues in Congress were bluffing about coming firearms legislation that would restrict the sale, transfer and possession of certain firearms, think again.
A summary of the proposed legislation has been made available, and it’s a whopper.
Among outright banning 120 ‘assault’ related firearms (such as AR-15′s and AK-47′s), the bill will also target any weapon that utilizes a “detachable magazine,” as well as any magazine with a capacity of over ten rounds, which would include semi-automatic handguns and shotguns.
Moreover, if you already own a firearm or modification that ends up on the ban list, you will be required under Federal law to register that gun, complete with a background check, fingerprinting and local law enforcement verification.
Those who have recently purchased firearms that would fall under the ban may soon find Federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) at their door looking to confiscate ‘illegal’ weapons or engage in home searches for illegal accessories like ‘high capacity’ magazines (over 10 rounds), flash suppressors, pistol grips, and bullet buttons (a feature designed to circumvent ‘fixed’ magazine laws in states like California).
The following is a summary of the proposed Assault Weapons Legislation:
Bans the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
120 specifically-named firearms
Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds
Strengthens the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban and various state bans by:
Moving from a 2-characteristic test to a 1-characteristic test
Eliminating the easy-to-remove bayonet mounts and flash suppressors from the characteristics test
Banning firearms with “thumbhole stocks” and “bullet buttons” to address attempts to “work around” prior bans
Bans large-capacity ammunition feeding devices capable of accepting more than 10 rounds.
Protects legitimate hunters and the rights of existing gun owners by:
Grandfathering weapons legally possessed on the date of enactment
Exempting over 900 specifically-named weapons used for hunting or sporting purposes and
Exempting antique, manually-operated, and permanently disabled weapons
Requires that grandfathered weapons be registered under the National Firearms Act, to include:
Background check of owner and any transferee;
Type and serial number of the firearm;
Positive identification, including photograph and fingerprint;
Certification from local law enforcement of identity and that possession would not violate State or local law; and
Dedicated funding for ATF to implement registration
What Is an Assault Rifle? (You’ve probably been lied to):
Ammunition, namely the purchase of bulk ammunition, has not been mentioned in the legislation summary. However, previous reports indicate that the purchase of large amounts of ammunition through the internet and directly from dealers may also be in Congress’ sights.
Are Americans prepared to give up their guns?
.
The lock-down is coming and it’s going to start when Congress reconvenes on January 3, 2013.
Many Americans, who have no concept of why the Second Amendment exists in the first place, will accept it without protest.
Friday, December 28, 2012
I Love Guns by Tom Finnigan
I Love Guns by Tom Finnigan
I want Americans to be armed to the teeth. In addition to practical and constitutional reasons for wanting an armed citizenry, I admit to having an emotional attachment to America’s gun culture. I’ll just come out and I say it: I love guns.
I love guns for symbolizing what made America special. Guns stand for self-reliance, rugged individualism, and a Don’t-Tread-On-Me attitude. Guns connect Americans to their heritage of resisting tyranny. Owning a gun means accepting final responsibility for defending your family and property. Loving guns means loving liberty and exercising the right to defend it by any means necessary.
I love guns for exposing the mutual antagonism between power elites and the common man. Almost everyone in the Establishment wants stricter gun control laws. Elites hate the gun culture. They don’t understand it. They’re embarrassed by what Europeans think of it. They associate guns with rednecks, red states, religion, paranoia, prejudice, and pretty much anything else they blame for insufficient progress toward collectivism. Many of them have never held a gun. Guns seem scary and dangerous to them. The common people love guns. They’re comfortable with guns. They shoot guns and hunt with guns. They talk about guns and read about guns. They collect guns and carry guns. They watch shows like Sons of Guns. They certainly don’t give a damn what Europeans think about guns. Elitist contempt for the gun culture only fuels its growth. Whenever the media calls for a ban on assault weapons, gun enthusiasts respond by purchasing even more assault weapons. When my dad bought his first gun, here was the exact exchange between him and the gun dealer:
Clerk: So why do you want to own a gun?
Dad: Because the imperial federal government doesn’t want me to have one.
Clerk: Right on.
I love guns for signaling who people trust. For many American youths, their first trip to the gun range is a rite of passage. It signals trust between parent and child. One characteristic of a free society is that citizens trust their neighbors more than they trust the government. The liberalization of gun laws over the last two decades suggests that Americans retain a great deal of faith in freedom. Elites are the exact opposite. They fear the common man and trust government with absolute power. They blame guns for gangs, suicides, and mass shootings. When Bob Costas says that young men can’t have guns "without something bad happening," it’s another way of saying, "You’ll shoot your eye out!"
I love guns for constituting the "line in the sand" in the struggle against tyranny. Americans have surrendered many freedoms over the years, but millions of them would rather fight to the death than surrender their guns. Democrats know that pushing for gun control during a presidential election would be political suicide; many working-class Democrats love their guns even more than they love the welfare state. Real Americans recognize that gun control is a step toward tyranny. If the U.S. government ever tried to disarm the civilian population, there would be a bloodbath in this country. You know it. I know it. They know it.
The right to keep and bear arms is the most important freedom because it’s the one that protects all the others. A right not exercised is a right lost. Despite the steady erosion of freedom in America, the gun culture is proof that the spirit of liberty is still alive.
I love guns. God bless America.
December 28, 2012
I want Americans to be armed to the teeth. In addition to practical and constitutional reasons for wanting an armed citizenry, I admit to having an emotional attachment to America’s gun culture. I’ll just come out and I say it: I love guns.
I love guns for symbolizing what made America special. Guns stand for self-reliance, rugged individualism, and a Don’t-Tread-On-Me attitude. Guns connect Americans to their heritage of resisting tyranny. Owning a gun means accepting final responsibility for defending your family and property. Loving guns means loving liberty and exercising the right to defend it by any means necessary.
I love guns for exposing the mutual antagonism between power elites and the common man. Almost everyone in the Establishment wants stricter gun control laws. Elites hate the gun culture. They don’t understand it. They’re embarrassed by what Europeans think of it. They associate guns with rednecks, red states, religion, paranoia, prejudice, and pretty much anything else they blame for insufficient progress toward collectivism. Many of them have never held a gun. Guns seem scary and dangerous to them. The common people love guns. They’re comfortable with guns. They shoot guns and hunt with guns. They talk about guns and read about guns. They collect guns and carry guns. They watch shows like Sons of Guns. They certainly don’t give a damn what Europeans think about guns. Elitist contempt for the gun culture only fuels its growth. Whenever the media calls for a ban on assault weapons, gun enthusiasts respond by purchasing even more assault weapons. When my dad bought his first gun, here was the exact exchange between him and the gun dealer:
Clerk: So why do you want to own a gun?
Dad: Because the imperial federal government doesn’t want me to have one.
Clerk: Right on.
I love guns for signaling who people trust. For many American youths, their first trip to the gun range is a rite of passage. It signals trust between parent and child. One characteristic of a free society is that citizens trust their neighbors more than they trust the government. The liberalization of gun laws over the last two decades suggests that Americans retain a great deal of faith in freedom. Elites are the exact opposite. They fear the common man and trust government with absolute power. They blame guns for gangs, suicides, and mass shootings. When Bob Costas says that young men can’t have guns "without something bad happening," it’s another way of saying, "You’ll shoot your eye out!"
I love guns for constituting the "line in the sand" in the struggle against tyranny. Americans have surrendered many freedoms over the years, but millions of them would rather fight to the death than surrender their guns. Democrats know that pushing for gun control during a presidential election would be political suicide; many working-class Democrats love their guns even more than they love the welfare state. Real Americans recognize that gun control is a step toward tyranny. If the U.S. government ever tried to disarm the civilian population, there would be a bloodbath in this country. You know it. I know it. They know it.
The right to keep and bear arms is the most important freedom because it’s the one that protects all the others. A right not exercised is a right lost. Despite the steady erosion of freedom in America, the gun culture is proof that the spirit of liberty is still alive.
I love guns. God bless America.
December 28, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Why the same old gun-control answers aren’t comforting
Why the same old gun-control answers aren’t comforting
Why the same old gun-control answers aren’t comforting
5:00 am December 20, 2012, by Kyle Wingfield
As the father of two small boys, I’m as haunted by last week’s massacre in Newtown, Conn., as anyone who didn’t know personally the victims or their killer.
I have the same fears as all parents anticipating the long, potentially treacherous path ahead of their children in this broken world of ours. My fears are only multiplied by my doubts there are many real options for thwarting future slayings in other unsuspecting towns.
The two primary questions we ask after mass killings are: Why do some people act so heinously? And how can we keep others from doing so?
The first question invariably draws answers like: madness, isolation, social awkwardness or marginalization, familial dysfunction, a craving for fame (or infamy), the prevalence of violence in our popular culture, and evil pure and simple.
The second question typically brings suggestions for treating these mental illnesses and social failures. That, and gun control.
Guns typically don’t make the list of answers to “why,” only to “how.” They are but one means for mass killings — albeit the most common one — not a motivation. Yet, guns become our central focus in times like these.
I understand the impulse. How do we begin to treat the mad, and especially people, such as the Newtown killer, with only mild disorders? As important as it is for us to attempt to rebuild the American family, can we wait the years or perhaps generations such an endeavor might consume, when another mass killing could happen today? How, within the bounds of constitutional guarantees for freedom of expression, does one dial back the violence found in our movies, TV shows, video games and even music?
Whatever a killer’s motivation, guns seem to be his means of choice. Better to address that, right?
As keenly interested as I am in preventing the next mass public shooting, I see little reason to find comfort in gun control.
Consider the high school rampage in Columbine, Colo. The year was 1999, amid a decade-long ban on “assault weapons,” those firearms defined by nothing more than the minds of legislators who drafted the ban on them. (Indeed, the main characteristic common to the weapons banned then seems to be the likelihood one might have seen a similar weapon in a shoot-em-up, kill-em-up movie — an implicit nod to the overriding impact of our entertainment culture.)
One of the Columbine killers was armed with a pump-action shotgun (not exactly a semiautomatic weapon) he fired 25 times. He also fired 96 rounds from a 9-mm carbine while using 10-round magazines — the limit of choice for those who say 30-round magazines are the problem.
When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced his ban on sugary soft drinks larger than 16 oz., most observers recognized the folly of limiting the size of one drink when a person could simply buy two or more of them. Does no one else find it similarly illogical to think a person bent on mass murder won’t just carry multiple weapons with smaller mags, or that lives will be saved in the few seconds it would take an experienced gun handler to change magazines?
I raise these objections not to defend specific weapons or magazines with any number of bullets. Neither I nor anyone I know owns an “assault weapon” (as far as I know), and I have no particular affinity for bullets that come in sets of 20 or 30 or 40 rather than 10. While I generally support gun-ownership rights, I’m open to practical suggestions that can reasonably square with the Second Amendment.
Nor do I think the situation is hopeless, or as good as it gets. I do think we can make our communities safer. But I think the most effective solutions will be less comfortable — such as asking when it’s OK to invade the privacy of those who are dangerously mentally ill — and more expensive — such as ensuring there are armed guards or designated weapons-carrying citizens even at schools and other “gun-free zones” — than merely banning particular weapons and ammunition.
The lives of innocents deserve the fullness of our thought and attention, not old ideas that have been sitting on the shelf, waiting for a crisis.
Why the same old gun-control answers aren’t comforting
5:00 am December 20, 2012, by Kyle Wingfield
As the father of two small boys, I’m as haunted by last week’s massacre in Newtown, Conn., as anyone who didn’t know personally the victims or their killer.
I have the same fears as all parents anticipating the long, potentially treacherous path ahead of their children in this broken world of ours. My fears are only multiplied by my doubts there are many real options for thwarting future slayings in other unsuspecting towns.
The two primary questions we ask after mass killings are: Why do some people act so heinously? And how can we keep others from doing so?
The first question invariably draws answers like: madness, isolation, social awkwardness or marginalization, familial dysfunction, a craving for fame (or infamy), the prevalence of violence in our popular culture, and evil pure and simple.
The second question typically brings suggestions for treating these mental illnesses and social failures. That, and gun control.
Guns typically don’t make the list of answers to “why,” only to “how.” They are but one means for mass killings — albeit the most common one — not a motivation. Yet, guns become our central focus in times like these.
I understand the impulse. How do we begin to treat the mad, and especially people, such as the Newtown killer, with only mild disorders? As important as it is for us to attempt to rebuild the American family, can we wait the years or perhaps generations such an endeavor might consume, when another mass killing could happen today? How, within the bounds of constitutional guarantees for freedom of expression, does one dial back the violence found in our movies, TV shows, video games and even music?
Whatever a killer’s motivation, guns seem to be his means of choice. Better to address that, right?
As keenly interested as I am in preventing the next mass public shooting, I see little reason to find comfort in gun control.
Consider the high school rampage in Columbine, Colo. The year was 1999, amid a decade-long ban on “assault weapons,” those firearms defined by nothing more than the minds of legislators who drafted the ban on them. (Indeed, the main characteristic common to the weapons banned then seems to be the likelihood one might have seen a similar weapon in a shoot-em-up, kill-em-up movie — an implicit nod to the overriding impact of our entertainment culture.)
One of the Columbine killers was armed with a pump-action shotgun (not exactly a semiautomatic weapon) he fired 25 times. He also fired 96 rounds from a 9-mm carbine while using 10-round magazines — the limit of choice for those who say 30-round magazines are the problem.
When New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced his ban on sugary soft drinks larger than 16 oz., most observers recognized the folly of limiting the size of one drink when a person could simply buy two or more of them. Does no one else find it similarly illogical to think a person bent on mass murder won’t just carry multiple weapons with smaller mags, or that lives will be saved in the few seconds it would take an experienced gun handler to change magazines?
I raise these objections not to defend specific weapons or magazines with any number of bullets. Neither I nor anyone I know owns an “assault weapon” (as far as I know), and I have no particular affinity for bullets that come in sets of 20 or 30 or 40 rather than 10. While I generally support gun-ownership rights, I’m open to practical suggestions that can reasonably square with the Second Amendment.
Nor do I think the situation is hopeless, or as good as it gets. I do think we can make our communities safer. But I think the most effective solutions will be less comfortable — such as asking when it’s OK to invade the privacy of those who are dangerously mentally ill — and more expensive — such as ensuring there are armed guards or designated weapons-carrying citizens even at schools and other “gun-free zones” — than merely banning particular weapons and ammunition.
The lives of innocents deserve the fullness of our thought and attention, not old ideas that have been sitting on the shelf, waiting for a crisis.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
The Greatest Gift for All by Paul Craig Roberts
The Greatest Gift for All by Paul Craig Roberts
Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.
Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.
The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.
This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.
Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.
The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.
In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by "political correctness" and "the war on terror." Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.
Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.
All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have already been murdered and millions displaced, because their religion does not submit to Washington’s hegemony.
Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as "unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything." Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.
Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.
As we enter into 2013, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, hangs in the balance. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?
Christmas is a time of traditions. If you have found time in the rush before Christmas to decorate a tree, you are sharing in a relatively new tradition. Although the Christmas tree has ancient roots, at the beginning of the 20th century only 1 in 5 American families put up a tree. It was 1920 before the Christmas tree became the hallmark of the season. Calvin Coolidge was the first President to light a national Christmas tree on the White House lawn.
Gifts are another shared custom. This tradition comes from the wise men or three kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus. When I was a kid, gifts were more modest than they are now, but even then people were complaining about the commercialization of Christmas. We have grown accustomed to the commercialization. Christmas sales are the backbone of many businesses. Gift giving causes us to remember others and to take time from our harried lives to give them thought.
The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
In our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to take on injustice.
This empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a voice.
Formerly only those with power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play. Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.
The result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was absorbed by a diverse people who became one.
In recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by "political correctness" and "the war on terror." Prayer has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. Constitutional protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention, torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back. Tyranny has re-emerged.
Diversity at home and hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the pre-Christian past.
All Americans have a huge stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ, we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected the weak. Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the 20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by National Socialists in Germany and by Soviet and Chinese communists simply because they were members of a race or class that had been demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of the 21st century hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have already been murdered and millions displaced, because their religion does not submit to Washington’s hegemony.
Power that is secularized and cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his dictatorship as "unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by anything." Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting unaccountable power.
Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims, unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by atheists.
As we enter into 2013, Western civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, hangs in the balance. Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring head?
Sunday, December 23, 2012
Friday, December 21, 2012
If Obama Is opposed To Guns, Why Did His Administration Just Purchase 1.6 Billion Rounds of Ammunition and Sniper Rounds? by Mike Adams
If Obama Is opposed To Guns, Why Did His Administration Just Purchase 1.6 Billion Rounds of Ammunition and Sniper Rounds? by Mike Adams
Obama's government stockpiling millions of rounds of ammo to arm the DHS and TSA
You can see the original federal purchase document requesting all this ammunition.
The numbers in the document, by the way, are in thousands.
In it, you'll discover that the U.S. government has also purchased all the following ammunition in addition to the 450 million rounds of .40 hollow point "anti-personnel" ammo:
Over one million rounds of hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
Over half a million rounds of non-hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
220,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #7 ammo (target ammo)
Over 200,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #00 buckshot ammo (tactical anti-personnel ammo)
66,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun slugs (tactical anti-personnel, anti-vehicle rounds)
Over two million rounds of hollow-point .357 Sig JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
Over four million rounds of .40 S&W JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
Over 60,000 rounds of .308 match grade anti-personnel sniper rounds (BTHP)
Plus, hundreds of thousands of additional rounds of .38 special, .45 auto, 9mm, 7.62x39 (AK rifle) ammo, and others.
DHS then buys another 750 million rounds of anti-personnel ammunition
A few months after buying the 450+ million rounds of ammo to be stockpiled by Obama's government in the United States, the DHS then went on to purchase another 750 million rounds of ammunition.
Additional contracts were added after that, bringing the grand total of government ammo purchases in 2012 to 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. That's over five bullets for every American man, woman and child. It also includes long-range sniper rounds.
Obama's government stockpiling millions of rounds of ammo to arm the DHS and TSA
You can see the original federal purchase document requesting all this ammunition.
The numbers in the document, by the way, are in thousands.
In it, you'll discover that the U.S. government has also purchased all the following ammunition in addition to the 450 million rounds of .40 hollow point "anti-personnel" ammo:
Over one million rounds of hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
Over half a million rounds of non-hollow-point .223 rifle ammo
220,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #7 ammo (target ammo)
Over 200,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun #00 buckshot ammo (tactical anti-personnel ammo)
66,000 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun slugs (tactical anti-personnel, anti-vehicle rounds)
Over two million rounds of hollow-point .357 Sig JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
Over four million rounds of .40 S&W JPH (hollow-point) pistol ammo (anti-personnel)
Over 60,000 rounds of .308 match grade anti-personnel sniper rounds (BTHP)
Plus, hundreds of thousands of additional rounds of .38 special, .45 auto, 9mm, 7.62x39 (AK rifle) ammo, and others.
DHS then buys another 750 million rounds of anti-personnel ammunition
A few months after buying the 450+ million rounds of ammo to be stockpiled by Obama's government in the United States, the DHS then went on to purchase another 750 million rounds of ammunition.
Additional contracts were added after that, bringing the grand total of government ammo purchases in 2012 to 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. That's over five bullets for every American man, woman and child. It also includes long-range sniper rounds.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Why the Government and Mainstream Media Celebrate Mass School Shootings (and Secretly Want Them To Continue) by Mike Adams
Why the Government and Mainstream Media Celebrate Mass School Shootings (and Secretly Want Them To Continue) by Mike Adams
Why the Government and Mainstream Media Celebrate Mass School Shootings (and Secretly Want Them To Continue)
by Mike Adams
Natural News
Recently by Mike Adams: Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and China now More Free Than America in Notable Ways
Adam Lanza's armed massacre of young students in Newton, Conn. is being celebrated by the mainstream media. It's also being celebrated by Obama administration officials who publicly shed a tear but behind the scenes are no doubt high-fiving each other over the opportunity to push their agenda of citizen disarmament.
The media celebrates mass shootings because they make for great ratings. People tune in to watch the horrifying scenes and share in the grief. This means eyeballs on the screen and that translates into ad revenue for the TV news networks.
Over 33,000 Americans are killed each year in automobile accidents, but those deaths warrant virtually no media coverage. Why? Because individual auto accidents just aren't interesting enough to attract a bunch of eyeballs to the screen. But a mass killing... well, gee, that's interesting to view in a horrifying "train wreck" kind of way. So that gets the air time.
The media glorifies psychopathic killers
What's even more horrifying than the massacre itself is the way the mainstream media now glorifies mass shooters, turning them into cult heroes and even ranking their body counts as a sort of achievement score. The Newtown shooting currently holds the "high score" according to the mainstream media, and they have no problem pushing this kind of junk journalism as long as their teleprompter-reading reporters appear to be convincingly saddened for the cameras.
Never mind the fact that such local shootings are largely irrelevant to the lives of Americans, especially given the far greater relevancy of issues like the Federal Reserve's debt creation monopoly, the deadly body count of prescription drugs (100,000+ Americans a year), the mass fluoride poisoning of the American people and so on. Why did the media spend hours broadcasting O.J. Simpson's white bronco slow-speed car chase on the LA freeways a few years ago? Because it was bizarre, not because it was relevant news. O.J.'s life is irrelevant to almost everyone other than O.J.
With school shootings, you see, the killer victimizes the children once, and then the media victimizes them a second time.
"Never waste a good crisis"
Nowhere is the celebration of school shootings more amplified than in Washington D.C. where the federal government desperately wants to disarm the American people. The higher the body count of children in a given mass shooting, the more "moral authority" D.C. politicians will claim to have in destroying the rights of all Americans by demanding they turn in their guns.
Right now, there's a massive call among traitors like Bloomberg to gut the Second Amendment and completely disarm perfectly innocent American citizens who have done nothing wrong (and are actually upstanding citizens who PREVENT crime).
Remember: Millions of privately-armed Americans are off-duty cops and returning veterans who have been trained by the government to carry weapons and use them to stop crimes. But people like Obama and Bloomberg want to condemn them all as "potential criminals" and strip away their constitutional right to carry a firearm. This is the idiocy of the Washington agenda to ban all guns from private citizens.
The more mass shootings occur, the louder the call becomes for "gun control" which actually doesn't work but it's a convenient scapegoat for those who don't know any better.
This is precisely why Eric Holder and the Obama administration staged Operation Fast & Furious as a way to put guns directly into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, with the hope that those guns would multiply the number of violent shootings in states like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.
The plan worked: Those guns were used in violent murders in the USA. But Eric Holder got caught, and now the Obama administration is busy trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug.
School shootings are secretly welcomed by the Obama administration because they create the necessary emotional impact that will result in irrational public support for citizen disarmament schemes. This is why the federal government keeps pushing for school "gun free zones." Such signs posted outside schools advertise those schools as easy targets for psychopathic killers. It's almost like posting a sign that says, "All killers welcomed here!"
Big Pharma also welcomes school shootings
The pharmaceutical industry is at least partially responsible for many of these shootings, as it is their own drugs which cause young males to become violent and detached. The vast majority of shooters over the last two decades have all been taking prescription medications such as antidepressant drugs (which are known to cause violent, suicidal behavior).
But the real benefit to Big Pharma from the school shootings is that such events traumatize other children who can then be "diagnosed" with fictitious psychiatric disorders which are invented solely for the purpose of selling more prescription medications to children who don't need them.
Why school shootings will be allowed to continue
School shootings, you see, benefit the media, the drug companies and the power base of the federal government. This is precisely why such shootings will be allowed to continue.
The solution to stopping all school shootings is ridiculously simple: allow principles and school office personnel to carry concealed. This would allow them to save the lives of children by halting psychopathic killers with lethal force.
And take down those delusional "gun free zone" signs. Posting a sign does not stop a psychopathic killer. If you want to physically stop such a killer, you need something called return fire.
Watch the video: How to stop a massacre
Reprinted with permission from Natural News.
December 19, 2012
Why the Government and Mainstream Media Celebrate Mass School Shootings (and Secretly Want Them To Continue)
by Mike Adams
Natural News
Recently by Mike Adams: Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and China now More Free Than America in Notable Ways
Adam Lanza's armed massacre of young students in Newton, Conn. is being celebrated by the mainstream media. It's also being celebrated by Obama administration officials who publicly shed a tear but behind the scenes are no doubt high-fiving each other over the opportunity to push their agenda of citizen disarmament.
The media celebrates mass shootings because they make for great ratings. People tune in to watch the horrifying scenes and share in the grief. This means eyeballs on the screen and that translates into ad revenue for the TV news networks.
Over 33,000 Americans are killed each year in automobile accidents, but those deaths warrant virtually no media coverage. Why? Because individual auto accidents just aren't interesting enough to attract a bunch of eyeballs to the screen. But a mass killing... well, gee, that's interesting to view in a horrifying "train wreck" kind of way. So that gets the air time.
The media glorifies psychopathic killers
What's even more horrifying than the massacre itself is the way the mainstream media now glorifies mass shooters, turning them into cult heroes and even ranking their body counts as a sort of achievement score. The Newtown shooting currently holds the "high score" according to the mainstream media, and they have no problem pushing this kind of junk journalism as long as their teleprompter-reading reporters appear to be convincingly saddened for the cameras.
Never mind the fact that such local shootings are largely irrelevant to the lives of Americans, especially given the far greater relevancy of issues like the Federal Reserve's debt creation monopoly, the deadly body count of prescription drugs (100,000+ Americans a year), the mass fluoride poisoning of the American people and so on. Why did the media spend hours broadcasting O.J. Simpson's white bronco slow-speed car chase on the LA freeways a few years ago? Because it was bizarre, not because it was relevant news. O.J.'s life is irrelevant to almost everyone other than O.J.
With school shootings, you see, the killer victimizes the children once, and then the media victimizes them a second time.
"Never waste a good crisis"
Nowhere is the celebration of school shootings more amplified than in Washington D.C. where the federal government desperately wants to disarm the American people. The higher the body count of children in a given mass shooting, the more "moral authority" D.C. politicians will claim to have in destroying the rights of all Americans by demanding they turn in their guns.
Right now, there's a massive call among traitors like Bloomberg to gut the Second Amendment and completely disarm perfectly innocent American citizens who have done nothing wrong (and are actually upstanding citizens who PREVENT crime).
Remember: Millions of privately-armed Americans are off-duty cops and returning veterans who have been trained by the government to carry weapons and use them to stop crimes. But people like Obama and Bloomberg want to condemn them all as "potential criminals" and strip away their constitutional right to carry a firearm. This is the idiocy of the Washington agenda to ban all guns from private citizens.
The more mass shootings occur, the louder the call becomes for "gun control" which actually doesn't work but it's a convenient scapegoat for those who don't know any better.
This is precisely why Eric Holder and the Obama administration staged Operation Fast & Furious as a way to put guns directly into the hands of Mexican drug gangs, with the hope that those guns would multiply the number of violent shootings in states like Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California.
The plan worked: Those guns were used in violent murders in the USA. But Eric Holder got caught, and now the Obama administration is busy trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug.
School shootings are secretly welcomed by the Obama administration because they create the necessary emotional impact that will result in irrational public support for citizen disarmament schemes. This is why the federal government keeps pushing for school "gun free zones." Such signs posted outside schools advertise those schools as easy targets for psychopathic killers. It's almost like posting a sign that says, "All killers welcomed here!"
Big Pharma also welcomes school shootings
The pharmaceutical industry is at least partially responsible for many of these shootings, as it is their own drugs which cause young males to become violent and detached. The vast majority of shooters over the last two decades have all been taking prescription medications such as antidepressant drugs (which are known to cause violent, suicidal behavior).
But the real benefit to Big Pharma from the school shootings is that such events traumatize other children who can then be "diagnosed" with fictitious psychiatric disorders which are invented solely for the purpose of selling more prescription medications to children who don't need them.
Why school shootings will be allowed to continue
School shootings, you see, benefit the media, the drug companies and the power base of the federal government. This is precisely why such shootings will be allowed to continue.
The solution to stopping all school shootings is ridiculously simple: allow principles and school office personnel to carry concealed. This would allow them to save the lives of children by halting psychopathic killers with lethal force.
And take down those delusional "gun free zone" signs. Posting a sign does not stop a psychopathic killer. If you want to physically stop such a killer, you need something called return fire.
Watch the video: How to stop a massacre
Reprinted with permission from Natural News.
December 19, 2012
Gunsville, USA by Jim Goad
Gunsville, USA by Jim Goad
As I lollygagged around the packed convention floor at the Eastman Gun Show in Gainesville, GA amid thousands of guns and what seemed like millions of bullets, it occurred to me that I’ve never heard of a mass shooting at a gun show.
As I lollygagged around the packed convention floor at the Eastman Gun Show in Gainesville, GA amid thousands of guns and what seemed like millions of bullets, it occurred to me that I’ve never heard of a mass shooting at a gun show.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
No Matter Who Wins, The Next President Will – Without Question – Be an Interventionist War President by Michael Scheuer
No Matter Who Wins, The Next President Will – Without Question – Be an Interventionist War President by Michael Scheuer
Having listened to a campaign in which Governor Romney explained how he would fix the U.S. economy and carry a big stick around the world, and President Obama continually blame George W. Bush for all our economic problems and try to depict Romney as the evil-millionaire Mr. Potter from Frank Capra’s, It’s a Wonderful Life, voters can take their pick on Tuesday. But when doing so they must realize that no matter who wins, the next president’s biggest problem will be fighting wars overseas with a war weary populace and an undermanned and ill-equipped military. And no matter who is elected, the new president will only have himself and his interventionist party to blame.
With our war against Islamist militants now two months into its seventeenth year and with those forces still scoring victories over America – note their win in Benghazi – both parties continue to pursue a foreign policy that is increasingly suicidal. Both support Israel without qualm or respect for genuine U.S. interests – Obama just wants the Iran war after 6 November – and both approve of surrendering in Afghanistan, in the wake of our surrender in Iraq. You can bet the lesson of how easy it was to defeat the American superpower in both places will not be lost on the Islamists. We also continue to protect and champion the Saudi tyranny and the other Gulf despots as "good U.S. allies," thereby making sure oil flows but building an ever greater hatred among ordinary Muslims for the states that oppress them and their U.S. protectors. (NB: Let’s hope that if Romney wins he keep his word and pushes for energy self-sufficiency, ending Obama’s reality-defying energy policy which has kept the Gulf tyrannies in high clover; American families extorted at the pump; and America locked in an endless war with Islam.)
Worst and most war-causing of all, both Obama and Romney are pro-Israel, interventionist democracy crusaders. Both men, for example, are awash with pro-Israel bribes – commonly known as "campaign contributions" – and are surrounded by war-mongering Neoconservatives, although those on the Democratic side are more quietly malign. Both men also buy into the lethal nonsense of American "exceptionalism" and the equally demented idea that the world is thirsting for Washington’s leadership and instruction on how to be good Westerners. They are cultural warriors to the core and men who are intent on using their rhetoric and your taxes to remake the world – especially the Muslim world – in their image. And if that does not do the trick, they will use U.S. military power to try to accomplish their policy of international cleansing and social/political/religious remodeling.
This said, it seems that facts, analysis, and substantive debate go largely unheeded in contemporary America. Whether you agree or disagree with the foregoing, though, there is a way to test my argument in a manner that seems more palatable to Americans; that is graphically. Given my at-best minimal computer skills, I cannot provide the graphics for you, but all it really takes to get a picture of reality is to imagine two simple political maps of the world, one for September, 2001, and the other for November 2012. What would be seen on these maps?
– The Map of September 2001:
– 1.) Al-Qaeda and its allies had only Taleban-governed Afghanistan as a major base in which to train, store weaponry, plot, launch attacks, and meet other Islamists from around the world. Yes, al-Qaeda and its allies had so-called cells in dozens of other countries around the world – and they still do – but only in Afghanistan could they operate openly and – thanks to the Clinton administration’s profound disregard for U.S. lives and interests – with little concern about being attacked while they prepared for 9/11 and what was to come. (NB: Interestingly, many Americans seem to have forgotten that in October, 2000, Clinton refused to defend America and Americans after the near sinking of the USS COLE, just as Obama has refused to do anything during or after the mujahedin’s recent easy victory in Benghazi. Both men clearly were more concerned with their party’s presidential prospects than with defending American lives and security.)
– The Map of November 2011:
– 1.) After more than decade of successfully resisting the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, the Taleban and its allies will in the next 18 months return to power in Afghanistan. Whether that new regime in Kabul is called the Taleban or not is irrelevant. It will be a Pakistani-and-Saudi-backed Islamist regime and it will welcome al-Qaeda and its allies to remain in its territories to train, plan, rearm, etc. The new Islamist Afghan regime also will have unprecedented access to and influence over the eastern third of Pakistan. Ironically, the Islamist Afghan state will be much larger, better organized, and better armed in 2014 than it was in 2001.
– 2.) In addition to soon controlling an expanded Afghan state, the international spread of the Islamists’ presence and power since 9/11 has been impressive. While Americans and their media have been bore-sighted on the willfully lost wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the politically motivated silence of the Islamist-empowering Obama administration has allowed the creation of a half-dozen Afghan-like Islamist bastions to go mostly unnoticed. Soon after 9/11, Osama bin Laden began dispersing his forces from South Asia – and he helpfully told us what he was up to in a public statement – with the result being that today Islamist military bastions are firmly established in Yemen, throughout the North Caucasus, in East Africa, across North Africa, and reaching from the latter down into Mali and toward southern Africa. There are also the Islamist-redoubts that are growing and solidifying via al-Qaeda’s startling and forceful turn to Iraq, as well as in Libya and Syria where Mrs. Clinton’s and Senator McCain’s "freedom fighters" are in the process of installing Islamist regimes with the military aid of our Gulf "allies" and al-Qaeda.
– 3.) While the sheer geographical dimensions of the mujahedin’s growth is very impressive, the places where they have ensconced themselves are even more impressive and strategically dangerous to U.S. interests. As al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks were designed to lure the U.S. military into Afghanistan – it being easier to kill soldiers and Marines there than in America – the post-2001 expansion of al-Qaeda and its allies is meant, among other things, to force the United States to fight in places where it has genuine, life-and-death national interests – not the nonsense of fighting for democracy and women’s rights. This becomes especially clear after a review of the activities of Al-Qaeda-in-the-Islamic-Mahgreb (AQIM), Al-Qaeda-in-the-Arab Peninsula (AQAP); Somalia’s Al-Shabab – which the West foolishly thinks is fully beaten after a series of tactical defeats – and Nigeria’s Boko Haram. The strategic bottom line for America is simple and clear: these four groups, with minimal inter-group cooperation, are near-to-threatening free U.S. and Western access to the Niger Delta’s oil resources and West Africa’s rich deposits of uranium and strategic minerals. The mujahedin also sit astride vital sea lanes off both coasts of Africa, at the Suez Canal, and in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Free and reliable access to all of these are indispensable to the economic welfare of the United States and as they become increasingly threatened we will have to fight for them. This is, incidentally, why the brief discussion of U.S. naval power during the presidential debate should have been prolonged. The protection of maritime commerce and offshore resource production is a ship-intensive activity; numbers do matter – perhaps more than military punch each ship packs – and the number of U.S. Navy ships now available is simply inadequate to the potential requirements for them. The method of operation of Al-Qaeda and its allies is today what it has long been: spread out U.S. military assets so as to sap their reserves and flexibility. This is a strategy that might well work as effectively at sea as it has on land.
– 4.) Perhaps the most important development in the U.S.-Islamist war in the last few years also has gone largely unmarked. The fall of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Qadhafi has greatly eased the operational environment for Islamist groups and movements not only in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, but also in other Muslim states whose regimes have a tenuous hold on power. Think especially of Jordan in the latter regard. Where three years ago Islamists in all these places were constantly hunted by Arab security services and killed, incarcerated, or turned over to U.S. authorities, today they operate freely with little concern for local security forces so long as they do not attack within the country; nowhere is this more true than in Egypt. From the Pakistan-India border to Morocco’s Atlantic coast, the Islamists are encountering a freedom of movement and a degree of personal safety that they have never before enjoyed. The Islamist are also much better armed than ever before, thanks largely to the looting of military arsenals in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Libya during the opening of the Pandora‘s box known as the Arab Spring.
So before voting, take a minute and imagine each of these maps and compare them. Then vote for whoever you want, but vote with the certainty that all Americans are joining you in voting for a president whose interventionism will bring all of us more war
Having listened to a campaign in which Governor Romney explained how he would fix the U.S. economy and carry a big stick around the world, and President Obama continually blame George W. Bush for all our economic problems and try to depict Romney as the evil-millionaire Mr. Potter from Frank Capra’s, It’s a Wonderful Life, voters can take their pick on Tuesday. But when doing so they must realize that no matter who wins, the next president’s biggest problem will be fighting wars overseas with a war weary populace and an undermanned and ill-equipped military. And no matter who is elected, the new president will only have himself and his interventionist party to blame.
With our war against Islamist militants now two months into its seventeenth year and with those forces still scoring victories over America – note their win in Benghazi – both parties continue to pursue a foreign policy that is increasingly suicidal. Both support Israel without qualm or respect for genuine U.S. interests – Obama just wants the Iran war after 6 November – and both approve of surrendering in Afghanistan, in the wake of our surrender in Iraq. You can bet the lesson of how easy it was to defeat the American superpower in both places will not be lost on the Islamists. We also continue to protect and champion the Saudi tyranny and the other Gulf despots as "good U.S. allies," thereby making sure oil flows but building an ever greater hatred among ordinary Muslims for the states that oppress them and their U.S. protectors. (NB: Let’s hope that if Romney wins he keep his word and pushes for energy self-sufficiency, ending Obama’s reality-defying energy policy which has kept the Gulf tyrannies in high clover; American families extorted at the pump; and America locked in an endless war with Islam.)
Worst and most war-causing of all, both Obama and Romney are pro-Israel, interventionist democracy crusaders. Both men, for example, are awash with pro-Israel bribes – commonly known as "campaign contributions" – and are surrounded by war-mongering Neoconservatives, although those on the Democratic side are more quietly malign. Both men also buy into the lethal nonsense of American "exceptionalism" and the equally demented idea that the world is thirsting for Washington’s leadership and instruction on how to be good Westerners. They are cultural warriors to the core and men who are intent on using their rhetoric and your taxes to remake the world – especially the Muslim world – in their image. And if that does not do the trick, they will use U.S. military power to try to accomplish their policy of international cleansing and social/political/religious remodeling.
This said, it seems that facts, analysis, and substantive debate go largely unheeded in contemporary America. Whether you agree or disagree with the foregoing, though, there is a way to test my argument in a manner that seems more palatable to Americans; that is graphically. Given my at-best minimal computer skills, I cannot provide the graphics for you, but all it really takes to get a picture of reality is to imagine two simple political maps of the world, one for September, 2001, and the other for November 2012. What would be seen on these maps?
– The Map of September 2001:
– 1.) Al-Qaeda and its allies had only Taleban-governed Afghanistan as a major base in which to train, store weaponry, plot, launch attacks, and meet other Islamists from around the world. Yes, al-Qaeda and its allies had so-called cells in dozens of other countries around the world – and they still do – but only in Afghanistan could they operate openly and – thanks to the Clinton administration’s profound disregard for U.S. lives and interests – with little concern about being attacked while they prepared for 9/11 and what was to come. (NB: Interestingly, many Americans seem to have forgotten that in October, 2000, Clinton refused to defend America and Americans after the near sinking of the USS COLE, just as Obama has refused to do anything during or after the mujahedin’s recent easy victory in Benghazi. Both men clearly were more concerned with their party’s presidential prospects than with defending American lives and security.)
– The Map of November 2011:
– 1.) After more than decade of successfully resisting the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, the Taleban and its allies will in the next 18 months return to power in Afghanistan. Whether that new regime in Kabul is called the Taleban or not is irrelevant. It will be a Pakistani-and-Saudi-backed Islamist regime and it will welcome al-Qaeda and its allies to remain in its territories to train, plan, rearm, etc. The new Islamist Afghan regime also will have unprecedented access to and influence over the eastern third of Pakistan. Ironically, the Islamist Afghan state will be much larger, better organized, and better armed in 2014 than it was in 2001.
– 2.) In addition to soon controlling an expanded Afghan state, the international spread of the Islamists’ presence and power since 9/11 has been impressive. While Americans and their media have been bore-sighted on the willfully lost wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the politically motivated silence of the Islamist-empowering Obama administration has allowed the creation of a half-dozen Afghan-like Islamist bastions to go mostly unnoticed. Soon after 9/11, Osama bin Laden began dispersing his forces from South Asia – and he helpfully told us what he was up to in a public statement – with the result being that today Islamist military bastions are firmly established in Yemen, throughout the North Caucasus, in East Africa, across North Africa, and reaching from the latter down into Mali and toward southern Africa. There are also the Islamist-redoubts that are growing and solidifying via al-Qaeda’s startling and forceful turn to Iraq, as well as in Libya and Syria where Mrs. Clinton’s and Senator McCain’s "freedom fighters" are in the process of installing Islamist regimes with the military aid of our Gulf "allies" and al-Qaeda.
– 3.) While the sheer geographical dimensions of the mujahedin’s growth is very impressive, the places where they have ensconced themselves are even more impressive and strategically dangerous to U.S. interests. As al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks were designed to lure the U.S. military into Afghanistan – it being easier to kill soldiers and Marines there than in America – the post-2001 expansion of al-Qaeda and its allies is meant, among other things, to force the United States to fight in places where it has genuine, life-and-death national interests – not the nonsense of fighting for democracy and women’s rights. This becomes especially clear after a review of the activities of Al-Qaeda-in-the-Islamic-Mahgreb (AQIM), Al-Qaeda-in-the-Arab Peninsula (AQAP); Somalia’s Al-Shabab – which the West foolishly thinks is fully beaten after a series of tactical defeats – and Nigeria’s Boko Haram. The strategic bottom line for America is simple and clear: these four groups, with minimal inter-group cooperation, are near-to-threatening free U.S. and Western access to the Niger Delta’s oil resources and West Africa’s rich deposits of uranium and strategic minerals. The mujahedin also sit astride vital sea lanes off both coasts of Africa, at the Suez Canal, and in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Free and reliable access to all of these are indispensable to the economic welfare of the United States and as they become increasingly threatened we will have to fight for them. This is, incidentally, why the brief discussion of U.S. naval power during the presidential debate should have been prolonged. The protection of maritime commerce and offshore resource production is a ship-intensive activity; numbers do matter – perhaps more than military punch each ship packs – and the number of U.S. Navy ships now available is simply inadequate to the potential requirements for them. The method of operation of Al-Qaeda and its allies is today what it has long been: spread out U.S. military assets so as to sap their reserves and flexibility. This is a strategy that might well work as effectively at sea as it has on land.
– 4.) Perhaps the most important development in the U.S.-Islamist war in the last few years also has gone largely unmarked. The fall of Mubarak, Ben Ali, and Qadhafi has greatly eased the operational environment for Islamist groups and movements not only in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, but also in other Muslim states whose regimes have a tenuous hold on power. Think especially of Jordan in the latter regard. Where three years ago Islamists in all these places were constantly hunted by Arab security services and killed, incarcerated, or turned over to U.S. authorities, today they operate freely with little concern for local security forces so long as they do not attack within the country; nowhere is this more true than in Egypt. From the Pakistan-India border to Morocco’s Atlantic coast, the Islamists are encountering a freedom of movement and a degree of personal safety that they have never before enjoyed. The Islamist are also much better armed than ever before, thanks largely to the looting of military arsenals in Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Libya during the opening of the Pandora‘s box known as the Arab Spring.
So before voting, take a minute and imagine each of these maps and compare them. Then vote for whoever you want, but vote with the certainty that all Americans are joining you in voting for a president whose interventionism will bring all of us more war
Monday, November 5, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
To President Obama: The 2nd Amendment Is About Fighting Tyranny, Not Hunting Deer by Michael Scheuer
To President Obama: The 2nd Amendment Is About Fighting Tyranny, Not Hunting Deer by Michael Scheuer
Soon after the Denver shootings, President Obama said it was time to put stricter gun-control measures in place. With the failure of Attorney General Holder’s “Fast and Furious” ploy to void the 2nd Amendment, it seems Obama thought he might capitalize on the Denver shootings to further damage the Constitution. The negative public reaction to his words, however, sent Obama backtracking, and senior Democrats like Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi quickly made public remarks to bury the issue – for now.
Before moving on, it is worth noting that Obama said gun laws must be changed but only in a way that protected Americans’ cherished tradition of hunting. Well, hunting game is not the central concern of the 2nd Amendment. What is central is that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of Americans to be armed in case they decide there is a need, in Jefferson’s words, “to alter or to abolish [the government]” and “to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
In creating the 2nd Amendment, the Founders – through James Madison‘s pen – took their cue from the British Bill of Rights (1689) which recognized that an unarmed populace could not protect its rights, liberty, and economic welfare against a king backed by a standing army, and so it allowed for an armed populace. The Founders also recalled that when London cracked down on New England’s resistance to the Crown, one of British General Thomas Gates’ first moves was to try to seize the munitions and ordnance the colonists had stockpiled around Boston. One reason for the British Army’s ill-fated expedition to Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, for example, was to capture the colonists’ stores of cannon, muskets, and munitions.
Even before Jefferson’s declaration, therefore, what in today’s parlance is called “gun control” was seen by Americans for what it was and is, a policy instituted by an oppressive government that fears its population and therefore aims at ensuring that citizens cannot arm to resist its will. The 2nd Amendment is meant, in part, to make sure that if the federal government created by the Constitution turns oppressive, Americans will have arms with which to defend their liberties and welfare.
And this right is much more important today than it was when the 2nd Amendment was drafted because the federal government has over time deliberately and probably unconstitutionally eradicated the 2nd Amendment’s other anti-oppression provision, the one that made sure the several state governments had well-regulated – that is, well-trained – militias at their command. The state militias were of course meant to assist the U.S. government’s standing army in case of foreign attack or domestic insurrection, but they also were meant to defend the states and their populations if the federal government used its standing army to willfully violate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or acted in a manner harmful to the peoples’ security, economic welfare, and/or their society’s social cohesion.
Except for Alexander Hamilton and a few other of the Founders, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists were very wary of – indeed, many hated – the idea of maintaining a strong standing army in time of peace, seeing it as an all-too-easy-to-use tool of would-be tyrants. The 2nd Amendment took cognizance of this historically genuine danger and established two hedges against it, an armed citizenry and effective state militias. The much stronger hedge – state militias – is long gone, and only the weaker hedge of an armed citizenry remains. And there seems nothing outrageous about the idea that, as the 2nd Amendment allowed citizens to be ready to resist federal-government oppression by matching it musket-for-musket in the 1790s, today’s citizens ought to be free to face the same potential threat of tyranny assault rifle-for-assault rifle.
Now, in response to the foregoing, I am sure President Obama and other recent presidents, their administrations, and their media shills would argue there is no chance of the federal government ever acting in a manner so oppressive to the liberty and welfare of Americans that the latter would decide to take up arms against it. And they may well be right. I hope they are.
But just for the sake of argument, let us imagine a future circumstance – far off and wildly unlikely though it may be – in which the federal government did violate the Constitution, threaten the destruction of the U.S. economy, tore the fabric of American society, and made the American political system a cesspool of financial corruption. And to add to the unreality of our scenario, let us further imagine that these actions are much more substantively threatening than those which motivated the Founding Fathers to rebel against Britain and those that led to the creation of the Confederate States of America and a civil war.
Just imagine, for example,
1.) That a single unelected federal bureaucrat issues a mandate that clearly violates the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for more than 70 million American Catholics, Jews, and Muslims.
2.) That multiple U.S. presidents take the United States to war without the formal declaration of war irrefutably demanded by the U.S. Constitution, and then intentionally fail to win the wars they start and so kill thousands of America‘s solider-children for nothing.
3.) That the federal government each year reaches into its citizens’ pockets and takes between $40 and $50 billion dollars and then gives it to foreigners, even in times when 25-percent of America’s youngsters are malnourished, more than 8 percent of Americans are unemployed, and the country’s critical infrastructure is crumbling.
4.) That senior elected officials in both parties, as well as senior federal bureaucrats constantly leak highly classified intelligence information to advance their partisan interests and thereby knowingly undermine U.S. national security.
5.) That presidents and attorney generals from both parties pick and choose what laws they will enforce, in direct and flagrant violation of the oath to execute all laws that the Constitution mandates they swear on taking office.
6.) That a long list of presidential administrations under both parties refuse to enforce laws designed to control U.S. borders, thereby knowingly compromising U.S. security and causing several U.S. states to have their economies damaged and social fabric weakened. In addition, imagine that those federal administrations also take legal action to prevent state governors from defending their populations.
7.) That the Congress and the Senate regularly and knowingly act to bankrupt and destroy such essential national institutions as the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Post Office by siphoning off their funds for other pet or less-important projects.
8.) That cabinet members and would-be cabinet members who do not file income tax returns, leak classified intelligence information, mislead Congress, and knowingly hire illegal aliens are never prosecuted.
9.) That the federal government so overspends the public treasury that the national debt can never be repaid, and that in funding the debt it also compromises U.S. independence and citizens’ economic well-being via massive borrowing from malign foreign powers and by exacting half-a-year’s wages from each American taxpayer.
10.) That the unaccountable U.S. Supreme Court interprets the Constitution in a way that makes the nation’s political system a cesspool of financial corruption, endorses the murder of more than 50 million-plus unborn U.S. citizens, and empowers the federal government to wage unrelenting war on religion, especially on Christianity.
11.) That the federal government’s executive and legislative branches permit multiple lobbies to act as agents of foreign powers to corrupt our political system; to influence our foreign policy in a manner destructive of U.S. security and leading to war; and then protects them by not making them register as agents of foreign powers and by passing “hate-speech laws” – the latter a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.
12.) That the federal education department ensures the school curriculum taught to U.S. children negatively distorts U.S. history, denigrates the Founding Fathers, and keeps students ignorant of the meaning and purposes of the country’s founding documents – such as the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
While it is hard, nay, nearly impossible to imagine that even one – let alone all – of these severely oppressive and destructive actions could be deliberately perpetrated by the federal government, we each learn over the course of a lifetime never to say never. And if the sorry day ever dawns when one or more of the above depredations occur, I would suggest Americans might well think about taking recourse to the arms guaranteed them by the 2nd Amendment, arms with which to defend their liberty, economic welfare, national independence, and their Constitution’s viability.
And who knows what the future will bring, some of the foregoing hard-to-imagine actions may not be all so far fetched. If one or more came to pass, I suppose the 2nd Amendment would be the last, best resort for Americans after, as Jefferson recommended, a patient and prolonged effort to peacefully undo the oppressive measures imposed on them. “Prudence, indeed,” Jefferson wrote, “will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
At day’s end, then, the 2nd Amendment exists to permit American citizens to perform the “duty” Jefferson describes by resisting and defeating with arms a federal government that knowingly produces a “train of abuses and usurpations” that is designed “to reduce them under absolute Despotism.” The 2nd Amendment should not be altered or diluted a whit, but should stand, as the Founders intended, as a stark reminder to all elected federal officials and their bureaucrats that, in extremis, the 2nd Amendment ensures that Americans have the right and the means with which to hunt down and remove those who use the federal government to oppress them.
http://lewrockwell.com/scheuer/scheuer15.1.html
http://non-intervention.com/
"Don't patronize the enemy. They mean business. They mean every word they say. They're killing us now. Their will is not broken, They mean it. ... If they're there, your job is to kill them all. I did not want to have them just retreat and have to fight them all over again."
Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC
Soon after the Denver shootings, President Obama said it was time to put stricter gun-control measures in place. With the failure of Attorney General Holder’s “Fast and Furious” ploy to void the 2nd Amendment, it seems Obama thought he might capitalize on the Denver shootings to further damage the Constitution. The negative public reaction to his words, however, sent Obama backtracking, and senior Democrats like Senator Reid and Representative Pelosi quickly made public remarks to bury the issue – for now.
Before moving on, it is worth noting that Obama said gun laws must be changed but only in a way that protected Americans’ cherished tradition of hunting. Well, hunting game is not the central concern of the 2nd Amendment. What is central is that the 2nd Amendment protects the right of Americans to be armed in case they decide there is a need, in Jefferson’s words, “to alter or to abolish [the government]” and “to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
In creating the 2nd Amendment, the Founders – through James Madison‘s pen – took their cue from the British Bill of Rights (1689) which recognized that an unarmed populace could not protect its rights, liberty, and economic welfare against a king backed by a standing army, and so it allowed for an armed populace. The Founders also recalled that when London cracked down on New England’s resistance to the Crown, one of British General Thomas Gates’ first moves was to try to seize the munitions and ordnance the colonists had stockpiled around Boston. One reason for the British Army’s ill-fated expedition to Lexington and Concord in April, 1775, for example, was to capture the colonists’ stores of cannon, muskets, and munitions.
Even before Jefferson’s declaration, therefore, what in today’s parlance is called “gun control” was seen by Americans for what it was and is, a policy instituted by an oppressive government that fears its population and therefore aims at ensuring that citizens cannot arm to resist its will. The 2nd Amendment is meant, in part, to make sure that if the federal government created by the Constitution turns oppressive, Americans will have arms with which to defend their liberties and welfare.
And this right is much more important today than it was when the 2nd Amendment was drafted because the federal government has over time deliberately and probably unconstitutionally eradicated the 2nd Amendment’s other anti-oppression provision, the one that made sure the several state governments had well-regulated – that is, well-trained – militias at their command. The state militias were of course meant to assist the U.S. government’s standing army in case of foreign attack or domestic insurrection, but they also were meant to defend the states and their populations if the federal government used its standing army to willfully violate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, or acted in a manner harmful to the peoples’ security, economic welfare, and/or their society’s social cohesion.
Except for Alexander Hamilton and a few other of the Founders, both Federalists and Anti-Federalists were very wary of – indeed, many hated – the idea of maintaining a strong standing army in time of peace, seeing it as an all-too-easy-to-use tool of would-be tyrants. The 2nd Amendment took cognizance of this historically genuine danger and established two hedges against it, an armed citizenry and effective state militias. The much stronger hedge – state militias – is long gone, and only the weaker hedge of an armed citizenry remains. And there seems nothing outrageous about the idea that, as the 2nd Amendment allowed citizens to be ready to resist federal-government oppression by matching it musket-for-musket in the 1790s, today’s citizens ought to be free to face the same potential threat of tyranny assault rifle-for-assault rifle.
Now, in response to the foregoing, I am sure President Obama and other recent presidents, their administrations, and their media shills would argue there is no chance of the federal government ever acting in a manner so oppressive to the liberty and welfare of Americans that the latter would decide to take up arms against it. And they may well be right. I hope they are.
But just for the sake of argument, let us imagine a future circumstance – far off and wildly unlikely though it may be – in which the federal government did violate the Constitution, threaten the destruction of the U.S. economy, tore the fabric of American society, and made the American political system a cesspool of financial corruption. And to add to the unreality of our scenario, let us further imagine that these actions are much more substantively threatening than those which motivated the Founding Fathers to rebel against Britain and those that led to the creation of the Confederate States of America and a civil war.
Just imagine, for example,
1.) That a single unelected federal bureaucrat issues a mandate that clearly violates the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom for more than 70 million American Catholics, Jews, and Muslims.
2.) That multiple U.S. presidents take the United States to war without the formal declaration of war irrefutably demanded by the U.S. Constitution, and then intentionally fail to win the wars they start and so kill thousands of America‘s solider-children for nothing.
3.) That the federal government each year reaches into its citizens’ pockets and takes between $40 and $50 billion dollars and then gives it to foreigners, even in times when 25-percent of America’s youngsters are malnourished, more than 8 percent of Americans are unemployed, and the country’s critical infrastructure is crumbling.
4.) That senior elected officials in both parties, as well as senior federal bureaucrats constantly leak highly classified intelligence information to advance their partisan interests and thereby knowingly undermine U.S. national security.
5.) That presidents and attorney generals from both parties pick and choose what laws they will enforce, in direct and flagrant violation of the oath to execute all laws that the Constitution mandates they swear on taking office.
6.) That a long list of presidential administrations under both parties refuse to enforce laws designed to control U.S. borders, thereby knowingly compromising U.S. security and causing several U.S. states to have their economies damaged and social fabric weakened. In addition, imagine that those federal administrations also take legal action to prevent state governors from defending their populations.
7.) That the Congress and the Senate regularly and knowingly act to bankrupt and destroy such essential national institutions as the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Post Office by siphoning off their funds for other pet or less-important projects.
8.) That cabinet members and would-be cabinet members who do not file income tax returns, leak classified intelligence information, mislead Congress, and knowingly hire illegal aliens are never prosecuted.
9.) That the federal government so overspends the public treasury that the national debt can never be repaid, and that in funding the debt it also compromises U.S. independence and citizens’ economic well-being via massive borrowing from malign foreign powers and by exacting half-a-year’s wages from each American taxpayer.
10.) That the unaccountable U.S. Supreme Court interprets the Constitution in a way that makes the nation’s political system a cesspool of financial corruption, endorses the murder of more than 50 million-plus unborn U.S. citizens, and empowers the federal government to wage unrelenting war on religion, especially on Christianity.
11.) That the federal government’s executive and legislative branches permit multiple lobbies to act as agents of foreign powers to corrupt our political system; to influence our foreign policy in a manner destructive of U.S. security and leading to war; and then protects them by not making them register as agents of foreign powers and by passing “hate-speech laws” – the latter a clear violation of the 1st Amendment.
12.) That the federal education department ensures the school curriculum taught to U.S. children negatively distorts U.S. history, denigrates the Founding Fathers, and keeps students ignorant of the meaning and purposes of the country’s founding documents – such as the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
While it is hard, nay, nearly impossible to imagine that even one – let alone all – of these severely oppressive and destructive actions could be deliberately perpetrated by the federal government, we each learn over the course of a lifetime never to say never. And if the sorry day ever dawns when one or more of the above depredations occur, I would suggest Americans might well think about taking recourse to the arms guaranteed them by the 2nd Amendment, arms with which to defend their liberty, economic welfare, national independence, and their Constitution’s viability.
And who knows what the future will bring, some of the foregoing hard-to-imagine actions may not be all so far fetched. If one or more came to pass, I suppose the 2nd Amendment would be the last, best resort for Americans after, as Jefferson recommended, a patient and prolonged effort to peacefully undo the oppressive measures imposed on them. “Prudence, indeed,” Jefferson wrote, “will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
At day’s end, then, the 2nd Amendment exists to permit American citizens to perform the “duty” Jefferson describes by resisting and defeating with arms a federal government that knowingly produces a “train of abuses and usurpations” that is designed “to reduce them under absolute Despotism.” The 2nd Amendment should not be altered or diluted a whit, but should stand, as the Founders intended, as a stark reminder to all elected federal officials and their bureaucrats that, in extremis, the 2nd Amendment ensures that Americans have the right and the means with which to hunt down and remove those who use the federal government to oppress them.
http://lewrockwell.com/scheuer/scheuer15.1.html
http://non-intervention.com/
"Don't patronize the enemy. They mean business. They mean every word they say. They're killing us now. Their will is not broken, They mean it. ... If they're there, your job is to kill them all. I did not want to have them just retreat and have to fight them all over again."
Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC
Monday, September 10, 2012
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
NEW YORK STATE - Erie County ballots must offer Spanish | WIVB.com
More Erie Co ballots must offer Spanish | WIVB.com
Is Erie county serious ? You do have to be a citizen to vote ? You can not understand English and you are allowed to vote what a farce !!! This state becomes more of a loony asylum every day !!!
Is Erie county serious ? You do have to be a citizen to vote ? You can not understand English and you are allowed to vote what a farce !!! This state becomes more of a loony asylum every day !!!
Friday, August 17, 2012
November’s Choices by Andrew P. Napolitano
November’s Choices by Andrew P. Napolitano
We are in terrible straits this presidential election. We have a choice between a president who has posed more of a danger to personal freedom than any in the past 150 years and a Republican team that wants to return to Bush-style big government.
President Barack Obama has begun to show his hand at private fundraisers and in unscripted comments during his campaign. And the essence of his revelations is dark. His vision of a shared prosperity should frighten everyone who believes in freedom, because it is obvious that the president doesn’t. He believes the federal government somehow possesses power from some source other than the Constitution that enables it to take from the rich and give to the poor. He calls this "a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared," and he declared, "If you've got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Today in America, nearly half of all households receive either a salary or some financial benefit from the government; the other half pay for it. In Obama’s vision for America, no one will be permitted to become too rich, no matter his skills and hard work. He somehow believes that government seizures and transfers of wealth generate prosperity. We know, of course, that the opposite occurs. Seizing wealth through taxation removes it from the private sector for investment. That produces job losses and government dependence on a massive scale.
The federal government has a debt of $16 trillion. We have that debt because both political parties have chosen to spend today and put the burden of paying for the spending onto future generations. The debt keeps increasing, and the feds have no intention of paying it off. Every time the government has wanted to increase its lawful power to borrow since World War II, members of Congress and presidents from both parties have permitted it to do so.
Last week, Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, blasted Obama for borrowing more than one trillion dollars in just the past year. He must have forgotten to look at the voting record of his designated running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.
Ryan voted for nearly every request to raise the debt ceiling during his 14 years in Congress. He voted for TARP, the GM bailout and most of the recent stimulus giveaways. He also voted to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on a credit card, which added another trillion dollars to the government’s debt. And he voted to assault the Constitution by supporting the Patriot Act and its extensions, as well as Obama’s unconstitutional proposal to use the military to arrest Americans on American soil and detain those arrested indefinitely.
We have a rough idea of how Obama would bring about government control of private industry through Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. From Ryan’s voting record, we have a rough idea of what Romney-Ryan would bring us: more of the Bush-era big government. In other words, Ryan is just another big-government Republican holding himself out as a fiscal conservative. Even his controversial budget proposals – which the House approved, but the Senate declined to address – would have increased government spending. It was less of an increase than Obama wanted, which is why the Senate Democrats refused to consider it, but it was not a cut in spending.
I am a firm believer that the Constitution means what it says. The federal government can only do what the Constitution authorizes it to do. The modern-day Republican and Democratic Parties have made a shambles of that principle. Nevertheless, I understand the "anybody but Obama" urge among those who fear his excesses, as do I. Obama has killed innocents, altered laws, rejected his oath to enforce the law faithfully, and threatened to assault the liberty and property of Americans he hates and fears.
Even though Ryan is a smart and humble and likeable man who was once a disciple of Ayn Rand on economics, as am I, the Republicans want the Bush days of war and spending beyond our means and assaults on civil liberties to return. The Bush years were bad for freedom; without them, we would not have had an Obama administration.
Which do you want?
Reprinted with the author's permission.
August 17, 2012
We are in terrible straits this presidential election. We have a choice between a president who has posed more of a danger to personal freedom than any in the past 150 years and a Republican team that wants to return to Bush-style big government.
President Barack Obama has begun to show his hand at private fundraisers and in unscripted comments during his campaign. And the essence of his revelations is dark. His vision of a shared prosperity should frighten everyone who believes in freedom, because it is obvious that the president doesn’t. He believes the federal government somehow possesses power from some source other than the Constitution that enables it to take from the rich and give to the poor. He calls this "a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared," and he declared, "If you've got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen."
Today in America, nearly half of all households receive either a salary or some financial benefit from the government; the other half pay for it. In Obama’s vision for America, no one will be permitted to become too rich, no matter his skills and hard work. He somehow believes that government seizures and transfers of wealth generate prosperity. We know, of course, that the opposite occurs. Seizing wealth through taxation removes it from the private sector for investment. That produces job losses and government dependence on a massive scale.
The federal government has a debt of $16 trillion. We have that debt because both political parties have chosen to spend today and put the burden of paying for the spending onto future generations. The debt keeps increasing, and the feds have no intention of paying it off. Every time the government has wanted to increase its lawful power to borrow since World War II, members of Congress and presidents from both parties have permitted it to do so.
Last week, Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, blasted Obama for borrowing more than one trillion dollars in just the past year. He must have forgotten to look at the voting record of his designated running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan.
Ryan voted for nearly every request to raise the debt ceiling during his 14 years in Congress. He voted for TARP, the GM bailout and most of the recent stimulus giveaways. He also voted to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on a credit card, which added another trillion dollars to the government’s debt. And he voted to assault the Constitution by supporting the Patriot Act and its extensions, as well as Obama’s unconstitutional proposal to use the military to arrest Americans on American soil and detain those arrested indefinitely.
We have a rough idea of how Obama would bring about government control of private industry through Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. From Ryan’s voting record, we have a rough idea of what Romney-Ryan would bring us: more of the Bush-era big government. In other words, Ryan is just another big-government Republican holding himself out as a fiscal conservative. Even his controversial budget proposals – which the House approved, but the Senate declined to address – would have increased government spending. It was less of an increase than Obama wanted, which is why the Senate Democrats refused to consider it, but it was not a cut in spending.
I am a firm believer that the Constitution means what it says. The federal government can only do what the Constitution authorizes it to do. The modern-day Republican and Democratic Parties have made a shambles of that principle. Nevertheless, I understand the "anybody but Obama" urge among those who fear his excesses, as do I. Obama has killed innocents, altered laws, rejected his oath to enforce the law faithfully, and threatened to assault the liberty and property of Americans he hates and fears.
Even though Ryan is a smart and humble and likeable man who was once a disciple of Ayn Rand on economics, as am I, the Republicans want the Bush days of war and spending beyond our means and assaults on civil liberties to return. The Bush years were bad for freedom; without them, we would not have had an Obama administration.
Which do you want?
Reprinted with the author's permission.
August 17, 2012
Thursday, August 9, 2012
WOW IF IT WAS WHITEs IT WOULD BE ALL OVER THE NEWS !!!
http://www.wnd.com/2012/08/race-riots-media-wont-talk-about/
IT’s one of the least reported and most alarming trends in recent years the mainstream media and politicians won’t talk about: The rise of black mob violence in U.S. cities across the nation.
The startling wave of brutality leaves behind battered victims while media and political figures consistently downplay the severity of the attacks.
In a radio interview with WND’s Greg Corombos, Flaherty explained why he has been documenting this surge in mob violence.
“I started hearing about what the newspapers were calling ‘flash mobs’ and teenagers walking around downtown Philadelphia,” he said. “It happened over and over. I looked at YouTube, and what I saw on YouTube was totally different than the antiseptic version I read in the newspaper.
“What I saw on YouTube was a race riot, several of them – large crowds of black people running down the streets of downtown Philadelphia, beating people up, hurting people very badly, pulling people out of cars, going into restaurants, stealing stuff, destroying property. Then I realized it was happening all over the country, not just in places like Philly, but in Baltimore, New York and all these big places and small places, like Peoria, Ill., or places you wouldn’t expect it, like Seattle and Portland.
“I wrote the book for one reason: to convince the deniers that we have an epidemic of racial violence in this country, and we have to recognize it.”
Flaherty admitted he doesn’t know what caused the outbreak of violence. In fact, he said he doesn’t even try to explain or solve the problem. He said he simply informs Americans of the wave of violence the mainstream media either downplay or refuse to report.
“When I say racial violence, I’m really focusing on the criminals/predators, not the victims,” Flaherty explained. “I’m not trying to get into the minds of the predators. I’m just saying when hundreds of black people march down the streets of Philly or Cleveland or New York or Boston, Peoria, Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland … 70 cities, when this happens over and over and over – hundreds of incidents in the last two or three years – and it is exclusively a black phenomenon, that’s why I call it racial violence.”
He argued that admitting the facts in these cases would force liberal activists and politicians to admit decades of racial policies have been unsuccessful.
“They’re hoping to avoid people like me asking one question. … After 50 years of affirmative action, racial quotas, preferential hiring and all this race-conscious behavior, they don’t want somebody like me to look at them and say, ‘How is that working out for you?’”
Flaherty also explained why he focuses on mob violence by blacks in particular: “When people call me and ask that question, I say, ‘If you have an example of white mobs or Asian mobs preying on helpless black people, a link or a video, if you have one of these that is not reported, please let me know, because this is so overwhelmingly a black phenomenon.”
He added, “Guess what: Black leaders know this. Black people know this. White people know this. You know who goes really crazy on this topic? It’s not black people. It’s white liberals. They’re the ones who go nuts when I talk about this.”
IT’s one of the least reported and most alarming trends in recent years the mainstream media and politicians won’t talk about: The rise of black mob violence in U.S. cities across the nation.
The startling wave of brutality leaves behind battered victims while media and political figures consistently downplay the severity of the attacks.
In a radio interview with WND’s Greg Corombos, Flaherty explained why he has been documenting this surge in mob violence.
“I started hearing about what the newspapers were calling ‘flash mobs’ and teenagers walking around downtown Philadelphia,” he said. “It happened over and over. I looked at YouTube, and what I saw on YouTube was totally different than the antiseptic version I read in the newspaper.
“What I saw on YouTube was a race riot, several of them – large crowds of black people running down the streets of downtown Philadelphia, beating people up, hurting people very badly, pulling people out of cars, going into restaurants, stealing stuff, destroying property. Then I realized it was happening all over the country, not just in places like Philly, but in Baltimore, New York and all these big places and small places, like Peoria, Ill., or places you wouldn’t expect it, like Seattle and Portland.
“I wrote the book for one reason: to convince the deniers that we have an epidemic of racial violence in this country, and we have to recognize it.”
Flaherty admitted he doesn’t know what caused the outbreak of violence. In fact, he said he doesn’t even try to explain or solve the problem. He said he simply informs Americans of the wave of violence the mainstream media either downplay or refuse to report.
“When I say racial violence, I’m really focusing on the criminals/predators, not the victims,” Flaherty explained. “I’m not trying to get into the minds of the predators. I’m just saying when hundreds of black people march down the streets of Philly or Cleveland or New York or Boston, Peoria, Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland … 70 cities, when this happens over and over and over – hundreds of incidents in the last two or three years – and it is exclusively a black phenomenon, that’s why I call it racial violence.”
He argued that admitting the facts in these cases would force liberal activists and politicians to admit decades of racial policies have been unsuccessful.
“They’re hoping to avoid people like me asking one question. … After 50 years of affirmative action, racial quotas, preferential hiring and all this race-conscious behavior, they don’t want somebody like me to look at them and say, ‘How is that working out for you?’”
Flaherty also explained why he focuses on mob violence by blacks in particular: “When people call me and ask that question, I say, ‘If you have an example of white mobs or Asian mobs preying on helpless black people, a link or a video, if you have one of these that is not reported, please let me know, because this is so overwhelmingly a black phenomenon.”
He added, “Guess what: Black leaders know this. Black people know this. White people know this. You know who goes really crazy on this topic? It’s not black people. It’s white liberals. They’re the ones who go nuts when I talk about this.”
Thursday, August 2, 2012
London 2012 Olympics: The Staging Ground for the Coming Police State? by John W. Whitehead
London 2012 Olympics: The Staging Ground for the Coming Police State? by John W. Whitehead
“As London prepares to throw the world a $14 billion party, it seems fair to ask the question: What does it get out of the bargain?” asks the Christian Science Monitor in a recent story on the 2012 Summer Olympics. “Salt Lake got to show that its Mormon community was open to the world,” observes journalist Mark Sappenfield. “Turin got to show that it was not the Detroit of Europe. China got to give the world a glimpse of the superpower-to-be. And Vancouver got to show the world that Canadians are not, in fact, Americans.”
And what is London showing the world? Sappenfield suggests that London is showing off its new ultramodern and efficient infrastructure, but if the security for the 2012 Olympics is anything to go by, it would seem that London is really showing the world how easy it is to make the move to a police state without much opposition from the populace.
It’s what the Romans used to refer to as “bread and circuses” – the idea that the key to controlling the masses is by satiating their carnal appetites and entertaining them with mindless distraction. Thus, while the world loses itself in the pomp and circumstance of a thoroughly British Olympics, complete with Sir Paul McCartney rocking the opening ceremony, celebrity sightings galore and a fair share of athletic feats and inspirational victories to keep us glued to our TV sets, a more sinister drama will be unfolding.
Welcome to the 2012 Summer Olympics, the staging ground for the coming police state.
Under cover of the glitz and glamour of these time-honored Games, a chilling military operation is underway, masterminded by a merger of the corporate, military and security industrial complexes and staffed by more than 40,000 civilian police, British military and security personnel, as well as FBI, CIA, and TSA agents, and private security contractors. Appropriately enough, this year’s Olympic mascot, Wenlock – a strange, futuristic blob with an all-seeing eye to “record everything” in the games – is being sold in Olympic stores dressed in a policeman’s uniform. “As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark,” writes Stephen Graham for the Guardian. “For £10.25 you, too, can own the ultimate symbol of the Games: a member of by far the biggest and most expensive security operation in recent British history packaged as tourist commodity.”
In addition to the usual tourist sights such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Big Ben, visitors to London may find themselves goggling at the military aircraft carrier floating in the Thames, the Typhoon fighter jets taking to the skies, ready to shoot down unauthorized aircraft, aerial drones hovering overhead to track residents and tourists, snipers perched in helicopters, an 18-km high, 11-mile long, 5,000-volt electric stun fence surrounding Olympic Park, and 55 dog teams patrolling the perimeter. Several locations throughout London will also feature surface-to-air missiles, including some residential areas in East London that will have them perched on top of apartment buildings. All these and more are supposedly part of the new security apparatus required to maintain security in an age of terror.
Roughly 13,000 private security guards provided by G4S, the world’s second largest private employer, will be patrolling the streets of London, under a $439 million contract with the British government. Due to some last minute trouble recruiting and training guards, 3,500 additional British military troops will be called in, making a total of 17,000 troops scheduled to police the Olympics.
More than 500 American federal agents, trained in the methods of security theater, will be on hand to assist Britain’s security forces. In fact, the CIA, State Department, and FBI have all been working closely with British authorities for well over a year in preparation for the Olympic games. TSA agents – infamous for stealing large sums of money from passengers’ luggage, patting down children and the elderly and handicapped, and, among other things, breaking diabetic passengers’ insulin pumps – will also be on loan to the British to assist with airport passenger screening during the Games, which will include fast-track fingerprinting for Olympic athletes.
There’s even a security patrol tasked with making sure that local businesses observe the government ban on symbols and words relating to the Olympics lest they cause economic harm to the “official” corporate sponsors, including Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and BP. These purple-capped government officials are authorized to enter businesses to look for violations, and can impose fines up to 20,000 pounds ($31,000). Included on the banned list are such words as games, 2012, gold, silver, bronze, summer, sponsors, and London. As Slate reports, “So far a London café has been forced to remove five offending bagels from its windows, as has a butcher who had the temerity to do the same with sausage links. Spectators have been warned that to risk wearing a garment adorned with the Pepsi logo may result in being banished from game venues and that nobody but McDonald’s can sell French fries at any Olympic concession stand. An old lady got tagged for sewing the five rings onto a mini doll sweater.”
And then there’s the surveillance. With one government-operated outdoor surveillance camera for every 14 citizens in the UK, Great Britain is already widely recognized as a surveillance society. However, in preparation for the Olympics, London has also been “wired up with a new range of scanners, biometric ID cards, number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, disease tracking systems, new police control centres and checkpoints. These will intensify the sense of lockdown in a city which is already a byword across the world for remarkably intensive surveillance,” reports journalist Stephen Graham. Even neighborhoods beyond Olympic park have been embedded with biometric scanners and surveillance cameras with automatic facial and behavior recognition technologies.
Unfortunately for the people of London and beyond, the UK’s willingness to host the 2012 Summer Olympics has turned this exercise in solidarity, teamwork and nationalism into a $17 billion exercise in militarism, corporatism, surveillance and oppression
“As London prepares to throw the world a $14 billion party, it seems fair to ask the question: What does it get out of the bargain?” asks the Christian Science Monitor in a recent story on the 2012 Summer Olympics. “Salt Lake got to show that its Mormon community was open to the world,” observes journalist Mark Sappenfield. “Turin got to show that it was not the Detroit of Europe. China got to give the world a glimpse of the superpower-to-be. And Vancouver got to show the world that Canadians are not, in fact, Americans.”
And what is London showing the world? Sappenfield suggests that London is showing off its new ultramodern and efficient infrastructure, but if the security for the 2012 Olympics is anything to go by, it would seem that London is really showing the world how easy it is to make the move to a police state without much opposition from the populace.
It’s what the Romans used to refer to as “bread and circuses” – the idea that the key to controlling the masses is by satiating their carnal appetites and entertaining them with mindless distraction. Thus, while the world loses itself in the pomp and circumstance of a thoroughly British Olympics, complete with Sir Paul McCartney rocking the opening ceremony, celebrity sightings galore and a fair share of athletic feats and inspirational victories to keep us glued to our TV sets, a more sinister drama will be unfolding.
Welcome to the 2012 Summer Olympics, the staging ground for the coming police state.
Under cover of the glitz and glamour of these time-honored Games, a chilling military operation is underway, masterminded by a merger of the corporate, military and security industrial complexes and staffed by more than 40,000 civilian police, British military and security personnel, as well as FBI, CIA, and TSA agents, and private security contractors. Appropriately enough, this year’s Olympic mascot, Wenlock – a strange, futuristic blob with an all-seeing eye to “record everything” in the games – is being sold in Olympic stores dressed in a policeman’s uniform. “As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark,” writes Stephen Graham for the Guardian. “For £10.25 you, too, can own the ultimate symbol of the Games: a member of by far the biggest and most expensive security operation in recent British history packaged as tourist commodity.”
In addition to the usual tourist sights such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Big Ben, visitors to London may find themselves goggling at the military aircraft carrier floating in the Thames, the Typhoon fighter jets taking to the skies, ready to shoot down unauthorized aircraft, aerial drones hovering overhead to track residents and tourists, snipers perched in helicopters, an 18-km high, 11-mile long, 5,000-volt electric stun fence surrounding Olympic Park, and 55 dog teams patrolling the perimeter. Several locations throughout London will also feature surface-to-air missiles, including some residential areas in East London that will have them perched on top of apartment buildings. All these and more are supposedly part of the new security apparatus required to maintain security in an age of terror.
Roughly 13,000 private security guards provided by G4S, the world’s second largest private employer, will be patrolling the streets of London, under a $439 million contract with the British government. Due to some last minute trouble recruiting and training guards, 3,500 additional British military troops will be called in, making a total of 17,000 troops scheduled to police the Olympics.
More than 500 American federal agents, trained in the methods of security theater, will be on hand to assist Britain’s security forces. In fact, the CIA, State Department, and FBI have all been working closely with British authorities for well over a year in preparation for the Olympic games. TSA agents – infamous for stealing large sums of money from passengers’ luggage, patting down children and the elderly and handicapped, and, among other things, breaking diabetic passengers’ insulin pumps – will also be on loan to the British to assist with airport passenger screening during the Games, which will include fast-track fingerprinting for Olympic athletes.
There’s even a security patrol tasked with making sure that local businesses observe the government ban on symbols and words relating to the Olympics lest they cause economic harm to the “official” corporate sponsors, including Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and BP. These purple-capped government officials are authorized to enter businesses to look for violations, and can impose fines up to 20,000 pounds ($31,000). Included on the banned list are such words as games, 2012, gold, silver, bronze, summer, sponsors, and London. As Slate reports, “So far a London café has been forced to remove five offending bagels from its windows, as has a butcher who had the temerity to do the same with sausage links. Spectators have been warned that to risk wearing a garment adorned with the Pepsi logo may result in being banished from game venues and that nobody but McDonald’s can sell French fries at any Olympic concession stand. An old lady got tagged for sewing the five rings onto a mini doll sweater.”
And then there’s the surveillance. With one government-operated outdoor surveillance camera for every 14 citizens in the UK, Great Britain is already widely recognized as a surveillance society. However, in preparation for the Olympics, London has also been “wired up with a new range of scanners, biometric ID cards, number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, disease tracking systems, new police control centres and checkpoints. These will intensify the sense of lockdown in a city which is already a byword across the world for remarkably intensive surveillance,” reports journalist Stephen Graham. Even neighborhoods beyond Olympic park have been embedded with biometric scanners and surveillance cameras with automatic facial and behavior recognition technologies.
Unfortunately for the people of London and beyond, the UK’s willingness to host the 2012 Summer Olympics has turned this exercise in solidarity, teamwork and nationalism into a $17 billion exercise in militarism, corporatism, surveillance and oppression
Sunday, July 22, 2012
ROMNEY AS BAD FOR AMERICA AS OBAMA !!!
http://ivn.us/2012/07/17/100-ways-mitt-romney-is-just-like-barack-obama/
Wes Wessamore, author of “Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush,” has a new very perceptive analysis, “100 Ways Mitt Romney Is Just Like Barack Obama.” Just the thing to send to those uber-partisan friends, family members, and colleagues (at church or work) wedded to the sordid candidacies of either one of these two duplicitous peas in a pod to demonstrate that the Big Fix is on once again.
The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.
— Carrol Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
The New York Times recently made a less than half-hearted attempt to summarize the similarities between President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican Party nominee, Mitt Romney. As New York Magazine reports, the Times wasn’t able to do much better than: They both like Star Trek, Modern Family, and Chicken. Here are just a few more similarities of just a little more substance
The following list isn’t just a bunch of opinions, but documented facts that together draw a compelling picture: Far from being polar opposites, the two “choices” offered as presidential candidates by this country’s two main parties are nearly indistinguishable on the substantive public policy challenges Americans face. Using the New York Times piece as a starting point, here are 100 ways Mitt Romney is just like Barack Obama:
1. Star Trek
2. Modern Family
3. Chicken
4. The signature legislative accomplishment of the man that Republicans have chosen to repeal and replace “ObamaCare” was “RomneyCare,” which was the blueprint and model for The Affordable Care Act.
5. The most controversial aspect of “ObamaCare” for its critics, was the individual mandate. Mitt Romney, like Barack Obama, believes individual mandates can be a good ingredient of public policy.
6. Mitt Romney reminds critics that he believed “RomneyCare” was good for the state of Massachussetts, but shouldn’t be implemented nationwide, and that’s how he’s substantively different from Barack Obama. In 2007, however, Romney said: “I’m proud of what we’ve done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation,” suggesting that, like Obama, he is not opposed to federal mandates either– just controversial ones that his partisan opponents pass.
(Items 7 – 9) As Jon Stewart points out on The Daily Show, Mitt Romney’s proposed legislative replacement for “ObamaCare” would keep everything in it other than the individual mandate, according to Mitt Romney’s own words:
7. Like Obama and the Democrats provided for in the Affordable Care Act, Romney’s legislative alternative would make sure people who want to keep their current insurance can do so.
8. Like Barack Obama, Mitt Romney wants to expand federal spending on Medicaid to help each state cover residents who cannot afford health insurance.
9. Also like Obama, Romney’s “alternative” would make sure people with preexisting conditions will be covered.
10. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama flip flopped on whether “ObamaCare” is or is not a tax when it was politically suitable.
11. The same Wall Street recipients of TARP bailout money that were top Obama donors in 2008 are top Romney donors in 2012.
12. The Obama Administration has failed to prosecute a single Wall Street executive for malfeasance related to the 2007 – 2008 financial crash. Wall Street’s aforementioned donation patterns make for a compelling conclusion: A Romney Administration would be no different.
13. Setting aside the justice system, legislative fixes for perverse incentives on Wall Street have likewise been underwhelming. Dodd-Frank has been impotent to prevent risky trading and stress tests for federally insured banks only anticipate another housing crash, not a catastrophic hit to America’s very monetary system itself. Instead of a substantive alternative to Obama and the Democrats, Romney’s solution seems to be to do even less: he wants to repeal Dodd-Frank.
14. Like Obama, Romney supports taxpayer bailouts of struggling corporations– handouts that go from hardworking Americans to wealthy companies with irresponsible management.
15. The most controversial bailout for Republicans and one of the motivators behind the Tea Party protest movement that began in 2009 was the TARP bailout of big Wall Street financials. Like Obama– who voted for it as a US Senator and continues to support and defend it as President, Mitt Romney supported and continues to support TARP.
16. Not only does Mitt Romney approve of Barack Obama’s federal management of auto industry bankruptcies, he takes credit for it.
17. Republicans criticize Obama for his role in getting Solyndra’s hands dirty with federal money, but at his own big financial company, Bain and Co., Mitt Romney secured millions in a federal bailout of his corporation’s own struggling finances.
18. Though he’s flip-flopped on this issue along with so many others, Mitt Romney has also supported the federal stimulus package passed by the Democrats and signed by Barack Obama, writing that the “‘all-Democrat’ stimulus that passed in early 2009 will accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery.”
19. Another thing that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have in common is that the numbers strongly suggest they were both wrong about the 2009 economic stimulus package.
20. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama oppose a full, yearly, public, top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve’s finances and activities, citing the need for “Fed independence” from Congress.
21. On monetary policy, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama do not see any urgent need to change the status quo and any reform of the Federal Reserve system is not a public policy priority for either candidate.
22. Like Barack Obama, who reappointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Mitt Romney has approved of Ben Bernanke’s handling of the financial crisis and monetary policy in America.
23. Mitt Romney approves of Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner’s record on economic policy as well.
24. Like Barack Obama, economic stimulus via federal spending on infrastructure development is a policy priority for Mitt Romney.
25. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama favor the extension of Bush’s deficit-funded tax cuts for the middle class.
26. Though they are currently sparring over whether or not to extend the tax cuts for high income earners (ibid.), Mitt Romney supports making these tax cuts permanent for them as well (ibid.), and as president, Barack Obama has already extended these tax cuts for high income earners once. Actions matter more than rhetoric. Are the two really so different?
27. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama supported the payroll tax cut extensions.
28. Neither Mitt Romney, nor Barack Obama have charted a course away from the bipartisan consensus that deficit-funded tax cuts stimulate economic growth, so that other than putting up a big showy fight over the details of tax policy, their substantive philosophies of fiscal policy are essentially the same.
29. Like Obama, Mitt Romney is open to a Value Added Tax as a potential fiscal policy solution.
30. In discussions of tax policy, Mitt Romney’s working definition of “wealthy” or “high income” seems to be $200,000 a year (ibid.), the same as that commonly used by Barack Obama.
31. Like Obama, Romney supports raising taxes on businesses, and did so as governor of Massachusetts, despite speciously claiming otherwise by calling his tax hikes on businesses in the commonwealth “closing tax loopholes.”
32. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama‘s federal budget plans would add trillions of dollars to the already unsustainable national debt over the next ten years.
33. Neither Mitt Romney, nor Barack Obama have offered a plan of detailed, substantive spending cuts to the out-of-control federal budget that pass the straight face test.
34. On Social Security, Mitt Romney’s plan is to manage, tinker, and keep “kicking the can down the road.” Barack Obama’s plan is to manager, not tinker… and keep kicking the can down the road.
35. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have taken strong positions against earmarking in the US Congress.
36. Neither Barack Obama, nor Mitt Romney‘s actions are consistent with their rhetoric on earmarks.
37. Spending categorized as defense-related has only gone up during President Obama’s first term from $616 billion under Bush in 2008 to $768 billion in 2011, and Obama still wants even more. So does Romney.
38. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have international backgrounds and parents with international backgrounds…
39. But both are foreign policy amateurs with backgrounds in domestic policy, finance, law, and community organizing rather than foreign policy…
40. Yet their team of foreign policy experts, from Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to Mitt Romney’s team of Bush-era neoconservative foreign policy advisers, indicates their equal commitment to Washington’s unpopular and incoherent foreign policy status quo.
41. And for the first time since 1944, neither of the two major parties’ candidates, Barack Obama, nor Mitt Romney, have military experience.
42. Despite running on a platform of change, Obama’s first term as president has demonstrated his commitment to the Bush era strategies of nation building and counter-insurgency. Mitt Romney doesn’t think Obama’s commitment to nation building is strong enough.
43. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support the Bush era doctrine of preemptive war.
44. Mitt Romney agrees with President Obama that the president can act unilaterally to take the country to war without Congress.
45. Though Obama paints Romney as an American unilateralist willing to take military action without the blessing and cooperation of the international community, Romney and Obama actually both agree with the Bush era foreign policy of unilateral US military action, and Obama took unilateral military action in the Osama bin Laden raid.
46. Though he has, unsurprisingly, held a different position before, Romney says he would have ordered the bin Laden raid like Obama did.
47. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama believe the US military can be used for humanitarian intervention overseas without an imminent threat to American national security.
48. Mitt Romney approves the NATO-led ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya supported by the Obama Administration.
49. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both agree that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is a national security priority for the United States.
50. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would unilaterally take the US to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
51. Barack Obama has been a consistent supporter and escalator, as both Senator and President, of George W. Bush’s war and counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. Mitt Romney thinks he isn’t supportive enough.
52. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are actively trying to outdo each other on which candidate supports economic sanctions against Iran the most.
53. Barack Obama has involved the US in Syria’s foreign civil war. Mitt Romney wants to get even more involved.
54. Mitt Romney supports continuing the Bush and Obama administration policy of cooperation with Pakistan despite its hostile activities toward US operations in Afghanistan and the fact that it appeared to have been harboring Osama bin Laden.
55. Mitt Romney supports the Obama Administration’s policy of unmanned aerial warfare via predator drone in Pakistan.
56. Tim Pawlenty– on Romney’s short list for a VP– has suggested that Mitt Romney would expand Barack Obama’s already unprecedented use of drone warfare.
57. Mitt Romney supported Barack Obama’s massive surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
58. Though he tries to distinguish his position on Afghanistan from that of Obama’s, The New York Times reports that “despite the tough critique, Mr. Romney has loosely embraced the main thrust of White House policy for troop levels after the election: a timetable for pulling out nearly all troops by the end of 2014.”
59. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama consider Israel America’s best long-term strategic ally in the Middle East and are committed to using US military power to go to war alongside Israel against its regional enemies.
60. Barack Obama has failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised on the campaign trail and as president; Mitt Romney said in one presidential debate: “My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.”
61. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney support indefinite detention of terror suspects without trial as a valid and legal tool in the national security state’s war on terrorism.
62. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney support the controversial practice of extraordinary rendition.
63. Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both speak in the rhetoric of American exceptionalism and divine providence concerning foreign policy.
64. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama base public policy positions and actions on dimensions of their religious faith.
65. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support and want to continue Bush-era faith-based initiatives.
66. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support the warrantless wiretapping of the Bush-era USA Patriot Act, which Romney has praised and Obama has acted to renew multiple times as both Senator and President.
67. Mitt Romney says that like Barack Obama did, he would sign the controversial NDAA, including its provisions for the arrest and indefinite detainment of US citizens on US soil.
68. Like Obama, Romney believes in the legitimate power of the president to execute American citizens by “targeted killing” done in secret without charges or trial.
69. Mitt Romney emphatically supported Barack Obama’s decision in 2011 to use “targeted killing” to execute US citizen Anwar al Awlaki by drone strike without charges or trial.
70. On the Bush and Obama-era TSA, Mitt Romney’s position is tinker a little, but maintain the status quo.
71. On undocumented immigration, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama‘s position may differ in some details, but can both essentially be summarized as “provide amnesty, but on certain conditions.”
72. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support continuing drug prohibition and the forty-year-old, Nixon-era War on Drugs.
73. Mitt Romney also supports the continued raids and prosecution of medical marijuana dispensaries (and even patients) that have characterized Obama Administration as well as Bush-era policy on medical marijuana.
74. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both support executive line item vetoes.
75. Despite criticizing Bush for unconstitutional executive overreach via signing statements, Obama has continued the practice, and Mitt Romney says he will too.
76. Exemplary of their respectively mixed records on transparency, is the recent exchange between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney over releasing Romney’s tax returns and releasing the DOJ’s Fast and Furious records.
77. Because he’s adopted multiple positions on abortion throughout his political career, it’s hard to determine what his actual views are, but Mitt Romney has agreed with Obama’s position multiple times on the importance of upholding Roe v. Wade.
78. On gay marriage, what Obama and Romney have in common is that they have both changed positions (or “evolved”) on the issue, and curiously done so when it would be of maximum electoral benefit to them.
79. On campaign finance, both Romney and Obama have supported campaign spending limits.
80. On the campaign trail, both major party candidates frequently invoke and heap praise on Ronald Reagan, but it’s hard to tell if either Romney, or Obama, who once said, “In this country, prosperity has never trickled down from the wealthy few,” is really sincere.
81. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both supporters of strict gun control measures.
82. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney prioritize “reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” pursuing alternative energy sources, and setting regulatory efficiency standards as part of federal energy policy.
83. Like Obama, Mitt Romney has said that he believes in global warming.
84. Like Obama, Mitt Romney supports capping carbon emissions and did so as governor.
85. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both support international cap and trade policies via global carbon regulatory treaty.
86. As The Atlantic reports, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have demonstrated a capacity for taking bold and unapologetic 180-degree turns on their stated policy positions.
87. As exemplified by a Mitt Romney campaign spokesman’s infamous Etch-a-Sketch comment and Barack Obama’s plea to the Russian president for some space on missile defense until after the election, which was caught on a hot mic, both candidates have also demonstrated a willingness to be insincere on the campaign trail.
88. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s signature legislative policies are unpopular with voters.
89. This is likely one reason why both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have engaged in so much negative campaigning emphasizing their opponent’s weaknesses rather than their own strengths.
90. This is also likely for the regression of both candidates’ campaign rhetoric into the same old, worn-out, partisan talking points and the trite political rivalry of left and right; blue team and red team; Democrat and Republican.
91. Though Romney has worked in big finance (to lobby for federal bailouts as aforementioned) and Obama did a stint in finance for one year, neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama have any small business experience.
92. But both were community organizers and Harvard Law school graduates.
Several more items that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have in common are the following people, who represent multiple political points of view, and who all agree that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have too much in common and few substantive differences on important matters of public policy:
93. George Soros: “If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them… So it won’t be that great a difference and I think there won’t be a great deal of enthusiasm on either side of the battleground. It will be more civilised than the previous elections have been.”
94. Newt Gingrich: “There’s a lot of parallels between these two guys…”
95. Judge Andrew Napolitano: “Can a man who essentially agrees with President Obama on all the key issues realistically become the Republican nominee for president?”
96. Rick Santorum: “And there’s no difference between President Obama and these two gentleman [Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich].”
97. Gary Johnson: “Most Americans are hard pressed to find a difference between Romney and Obama when it comes to intervention.”
98. Ralph Nader: (CBS News) ‘Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader says he sees “far too little difference” between President Obama and presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, arguing that “we deserve more choices in this country.”
In the interview with Hotsheet on Monday, Nader said the president and his likely Republican challenger are essentially the same when it comes to foreign policy and their attitudes “toward Wall Street and corporate power.” The primary difference, he said, is their position on social services.’
99. The Des Moines Register, the newspaper that endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican Party nomination in 2012.
100. Voters: (Yahoo! News) “A new Quinnipiac poll shows Barack Obama holding a four-point lead over likely contender Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Politico noted that other recent polls project similar preference, with CBS/NYT calling the candidates tied, PPP giving Obama a four-point lead, and Gallup giving Romney a two-point lead. Only CNN/Opinion Research turned up a significant spread, with Obama in the lead by nine points.
Why is the spread so close? Voters don’t seem to find much difference between Obama and Romney. [emphasis added] Gas prices and women’s issues are the only issues where either candidate has a decisive advantage, Politico said, with gas prices favoring Romney and women’s issues in Obama’s camp.”
Wes Wessamore, author of “Bush 2.0: 100 Ways Barack Obama Is Just Like George W. Bush,” has a new very perceptive analysis, “100 Ways Mitt Romney Is Just Like Barack Obama.” Just the thing to send to those uber-partisan friends, family members, and colleagues (at church or work) wedded to the sordid candidacies of either one of these two duplicitous peas in a pod to demonstrate that the Big Fix is on once again.
The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.
— Carrol Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
The New York Times recently made a less than half-hearted attempt to summarize the similarities between President Barack Obama and presumptive Republican Party nominee, Mitt Romney. As New York Magazine reports, the Times wasn’t able to do much better than: They both like Star Trek, Modern Family, and Chicken. Here are just a few more similarities of just a little more substance
The following list isn’t just a bunch of opinions, but documented facts that together draw a compelling picture: Far from being polar opposites, the two “choices” offered as presidential candidates by this country’s two main parties are nearly indistinguishable on the substantive public policy challenges Americans face. Using the New York Times piece as a starting point, here are 100 ways Mitt Romney is just like Barack Obama:
1. Star Trek
2. Modern Family
3. Chicken
4. The signature legislative accomplishment of the man that Republicans have chosen to repeal and replace “ObamaCare” was “RomneyCare,” which was the blueprint and model for The Affordable Care Act.
5. The most controversial aspect of “ObamaCare” for its critics, was the individual mandate. Mitt Romney, like Barack Obama, believes individual mandates can be a good ingredient of public policy.
6. Mitt Romney reminds critics that he believed “RomneyCare” was good for the state of Massachussetts, but shouldn’t be implemented nationwide, and that’s how he’s substantively different from Barack Obama. In 2007, however, Romney said: “I’m proud of what we’ve done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation,” suggesting that, like Obama, he is not opposed to federal mandates either– just controversial ones that his partisan opponents pass.
(Items 7 – 9) As Jon Stewart points out on The Daily Show, Mitt Romney’s proposed legislative replacement for “ObamaCare” would keep everything in it other than the individual mandate, according to Mitt Romney’s own words:
7. Like Obama and the Democrats provided for in the Affordable Care Act, Romney’s legislative alternative would make sure people who want to keep their current insurance can do so.
8. Like Barack Obama, Mitt Romney wants to expand federal spending on Medicaid to help each state cover residents who cannot afford health insurance.
9. Also like Obama, Romney’s “alternative” would make sure people with preexisting conditions will be covered.
10. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama flip flopped on whether “ObamaCare” is or is not a tax when it was politically suitable.
11. The same Wall Street recipients of TARP bailout money that were top Obama donors in 2008 are top Romney donors in 2012.
12. The Obama Administration has failed to prosecute a single Wall Street executive for malfeasance related to the 2007 – 2008 financial crash. Wall Street’s aforementioned donation patterns make for a compelling conclusion: A Romney Administration would be no different.
13. Setting aside the justice system, legislative fixes for perverse incentives on Wall Street have likewise been underwhelming. Dodd-Frank has been impotent to prevent risky trading and stress tests for federally insured banks only anticipate another housing crash, not a catastrophic hit to America’s very monetary system itself. Instead of a substantive alternative to Obama and the Democrats, Romney’s solution seems to be to do even less: he wants to repeal Dodd-Frank.
14. Like Obama, Romney supports taxpayer bailouts of struggling corporations– handouts that go from hardworking Americans to wealthy companies with irresponsible management.
15. The most controversial bailout for Republicans and one of the motivators behind the Tea Party protest movement that began in 2009 was the TARP bailout of big Wall Street financials. Like Obama– who voted for it as a US Senator and continues to support and defend it as President, Mitt Romney supported and continues to support TARP.
16. Not only does Mitt Romney approve of Barack Obama’s federal management of auto industry bankruptcies, he takes credit for it.
17. Republicans criticize Obama for his role in getting Solyndra’s hands dirty with federal money, but at his own big financial company, Bain and Co., Mitt Romney secured millions in a federal bailout of his corporation’s own struggling finances.
18. Though he’s flip-flopped on this issue along with so many others, Mitt Romney has also supported the federal stimulus package passed by the Democrats and signed by Barack Obama, writing that the “‘all-Democrat’ stimulus that passed in early 2009 will accelerate the timing of the start of the recovery.”
19. Another thing that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have in common is that the numbers strongly suggest they were both wrong about the 2009 economic stimulus package.
20. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama oppose a full, yearly, public, top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve’s finances and activities, citing the need for “Fed independence” from Congress.
21. On monetary policy, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama do not see any urgent need to change the status quo and any reform of the Federal Reserve system is not a public policy priority for either candidate.
22. Like Barack Obama, who reappointed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Mitt Romney has approved of Ben Bernanke’s handling of the financial crisis and monetary policy in America.
23. Mitt Romney approves of Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner’s record on economic policy as well.
24. Like Barack Obama, economic stimulus via federal spending on infrastructure development is a policy priority for Mitt Romney.
25. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama favor the extension of Bush’s deficit-funded tax cuts for the middle class.
26. Though they are currently sparring over whether or not to extend the tax cuts for high income earners (ibid.), Mitt Romney supports making these tax cuts permanent for them as well (ibid.), and as president, Barack Obama has already extended these tax cuts for high income earners once. Actions matter more than rhetoric. Are the two really so different?
27. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama supported the payroll tax cut extensions.
28. Neither Mitt Romney, nor Barack Obama have charted a course away from the bipartisan consensus that deficit-funded tax cuts stimulate economic growth, so that other than putting up a big showy fight over the details of tax policy, their substantive philosophies of fiscal policy are essentially the same.
29. Like Obama, Mitt Romney is open to a Value Added Tax as a potential fiscal policy solution.
30. In discussions of tax policy, Mitt Romney’s working definition of “wealthy” or “high income” seems to be $200,000 a year (ibid.), the same as that commonly used by Barack Obama.
31. Like Obama, Romney supports raising taxes on businesses, and did so as governor of Massachusetts, despite speciously claiming otherwise by calling his tax hikes on businesses in the commonwealth “closing tax loopholes.”
32. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama‘s federal budget plans would add trillions of dollars to the already unsustainable national debt over the next ten years.
33. Neither Mitt Romney, nor Barack Obama have offered a plan of detailed, substantive spending cuts to the out-of-control federal budget that pass the straight face test.
34. On Social Security, Mitt Romney’s plan is to manage, tinker, and keep “kicking the can down the road.” Barack Obama’s plan is to manager, not tinker… and keep kicking the can down the road.
35. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have taken strong positions against earmarking in the US Congress.
36. Neither Barack Obama, nor Mitt Romney‘s actions are consistent with their rhetoric on earmarks.
37. Spending categorized as defense-related has only gone up during President Obama’s first term from $616 billion under Bush in 2008 to $768 billion in 2011, and Obama still wants even more. So does Romney.
38. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have international backgrounds and parents with international backgrounds…
39. But both are foreign policy amateurs with backgrounds in domestic policy, finance, law, and community organizing rather than foreign policy…
40. Yet their team of foreign policy experts, from Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, and secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, to Mitt Romney’s team of Bush-era neoconservative foreign policy advisers, indicates their equal commitment to Washington’s unpopular and incoherent foreign policy status quo.
41. And for the first time since 1944, neither of the two major parties’ candidates, Barack Obama, nor Mitt Romney, have military experience.
42. Despite running on a platform of change, Obama’s first term as president has demonstrated his commitment to the Bush era strategies of nation building and counter-insurgency. Mitt Romney doesn’t think Obama’s commitment to nation building is strong enough.
43. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support the Bush era doctrine of preemptive war.
44. Mitt Romney agrees with President Obama that the president can act unilaterally to take the country to war without Congress.
45. Though Obama paints Romney as an American unilateralist willing to take military action without the blessing and cooperation of the international community, Romney and Obama actually both agree with the Bush era foreign policy of unilateral US military action, and Obama took unilateral military action in the Osama bin Laden raid.
46. Though he has, unsurprisingly, held a different position before, Romney says he would have ordered the bin Laden raid like Obama did.
47. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama believe the US military can be used for humanitarian intervention overseas without an imminent threat to American national security.
48. Mitt Romney approves the NATO-led ousting of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya supported by the Obama Administration.
49. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both agree that preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is a national security priority for the United States.
50. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama would unilaterally take the US to war against Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
51. Barack Obama has been a consistent supporter and escalator, as both Senator and President, of George W. Bush’s war and counter-insurgency operations in Iraq. Mitt Romney thinks he isn’t supportive enough.
52. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are actively trying to outdo each other on which candidate supports economic sanctions against Iran the most.
53. Barack Obama has involved the US in Syria’s foreign civil war. Mitt Romney wants to get even more involved.
54. Mitt Romney supports continuing the Bush and Obama administration policy of cooperation with Pakistan despite its hostile activities toward US operations in Afghanistan and the fact that it appeared to have been harboring Osama bin Laden.
55. Mitt Romney supports the Obama Administration’s policy of unmanned aerial warfare via predator drone in Pakistan.
56. Tim Pawlenty– on Romney’s short list for a VP– has suggested that Mitt Romney would expand Barack Obama’s already unprecedented use of drone warfare.
57. Mitt Romney supported Barack Obama’s massive surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
58. Though he tries to distinguish his position on Afghanistan from that of Obama’s, The New York Times reports that “despite the tough critique, Mr. Romney has loosely embraced the main thrust of White House policy for troop levels after the election: a timetable for pulling out nearly all troops by the end of 2014.”
59. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama consider Israel America’s best long-term strategic ally in the Middle East and are committed to using US military power to go to war alongside Israel against its regional enemies.
60. Barack Obama has failed to close Guantanamo Bay as promised on the campaign trail and as president; Mitt Romney said in one presidential debate: “My view is, we ought to double Guantanamo.”
61. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney support indefinite detention of terror suspects without trial as a valid and legal tool in the national security state’s war on terrorism.
62. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney support the controversial practice of extraordinary rendition.
63. Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both speak in the rhetoric of American exceptionalism and divine providence concerning foreign policy.
64. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama base public policy positions and actions on dimensions of their religious faith.
65. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support and want to continue Bush-era faith-based initiatives.
66. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support the warrantless wiretapping of the Bush-era USA Patriot Act, which Romney has praised and Obama has acted to renew multiple times as both Senator and President.
67. Mitt Romney says that like Barack Obama did, he would sign the controversial NDAA, including its provisions for the arrest and indefinite detainment of US citizens on US soil.
68. Like Obama, Romney believes in the legitimate power of the president to execute American citizens by “targeted killing” done in secret without charges or trial.
69. Mitt Romney emphatically supported Barack Obama’s decision in 2011 to use “targeted killing” to execute US citizen Anwar al Awlaki by drone strike without charges or trial.
70. On the Bush and Obama-era TSA, Mitt Romney’s position is tinker a little, but maintain the status quo.
71. On undocumented immigration, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama‘s position may differ in some details, but can both essentially be summarized as “provide amnesty, but on certain conditions.”
72. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama support continuing drug prohibition and the forty-year-old, Nixon-era War on Drugs.
73. Mitt Romney also supports the continued raids and prosecution of medical marijuana dispensaries (and even patients) that have characterized Obama Administration as well as Bush-era policy on medical marijuana.
74. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both support executive line item vetoes.
75. Despite criticizing Bush for unconstitutional executive overreach via signing statements, Obama has continued the practice, and Mitt Romney says he will too.
76. Exemplary of their respectively mixed records on transparency, is the recent exchange between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney over releasing Romney’s tax returns and releasing the DOJ’s Fast and Furious records.
77. Because he’s adopted multiple positions on abortion throughout his political career, it’s hard to determine what his actual views are, but Mitt Romney has agreed with Obama’s position multiple times on the importance of upholding Roe v. Wade.
78. On gay marriage, what Obama and Romney have in common is that they have both changed positions (or “evolved”) on the issue, and curiously done so when it would be of maximum electoral benefit to them.
79. On campaign finance, both Romney and Obama have supported campaign spending limits.
80. On the campaign trail, both major party candidates frequently invoke and heap praise on Ronald Reagan, but it’s hard to tell if either Romney, or Obama, who once said, “In this country, prosperity has never trickled down from the wealthy few,” is really sincere.
81. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are both supporters of strict gun control measures.
82. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney prioritize “reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” pursuing alternative energy sources, and setting regulatory efficiency standards as part of federal energy policy.
83. Like Obama, Mitt Romney has said that he believes in global warming.
84. Like Obama, Mitt Romney supports capping carbon emissions and did so as governor.
85. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both support international cap and trade policies via global carbon regulatory treaty.
86. As The Atlantic reports, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have demonstrated a capacity for taking bold and unapologetic 180-degree turns on their stated policy positions.
87. As exemplified by a Mitt Romney campaign spokesman’s infamous Etch-a-Sketch comment and Barack Obama’s plea to the Russian president for some space on missile defense until after the election, which was caught on a hot mic, both candidates have also demonstrated a willingness to be insincere on the campaign trail.
88. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s signature legislative policies are unpopular with voters.
89. This is likely one reason why both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have engaged in so much negative campaigning emphasizing their opponent’s weaknesses rather than their own strengths.
90. This is also likely for the regression of both candidates’ campaign rhetoric into the same old, worn-out, partisan talking points and the trite political rivalry of left and right; blue team and red team; Democrat and Republican.
91. Though Romney has worked in big finance (to lobby for federal bailouts as aforementioned) and Obama did a stint in finance for one year, neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama have any small business experience.
92. But both were community organizers and Harvard Law school graduates.
Several more items that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have in common are the following people, who represent multiple political points of view, and who all agree that Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have too much in common and few substantive differences on important matters of public policy:
93. George Soros: “If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them… So it won’t be that great a difference and I think there won’t be a great deal of enthusiasm on either side of the battleground. It will be more civilised than the previous elections have been.”
94. Newt Gingrich: “There’s a lot of parallels between these two guys…”
95. Judge Andrew Napolitano: “Can a man who essentially agrees with President Obama on all the key issues realistically become the Republican nominee for president?”
96. Rick Santorum: “And there’s no difference between President Obama and these two gentleman [Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich].”
97. Gary Johnson: “Most Americans are hard pressed to find a difference between Romney and Obama when it comes to intervention.”
98. Ralph Nader: (CBS News) ‘Consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader says he sees “far too little difference” between President Obama and presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, arguing that “we deserve more choices in this country.”
In the interview with Hotsheet on Monday, Nader said the president and his likely Republican challenger are essentially the same when it comes to foreign policy and their attitudes “toward Wall Street and corporate power.” The primary difference, he said, is their position on social services.’
99. The Des Moines Register, the newspaper that endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican Party nomination in 2012.
100. Voters: (Yahoo! News) “A new Quinnipiac poll shows Barack Obama holding a four-point lead over likely contender Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Politico noted that other recent polls project similar preference, with CBS/NYT calling the candidates tied, PPP giving Obama a four-point lead, and Gallup giving Romney a two-point lead. Only CNN/Opinion Research turned up a significant spread, with Obama in the lead by nine points.
Why is the spread so close? Voters don’t seem to find much difference between Obama and Romney. [emphasis added] Gas prices and women’s issues are the only issues where either candidate has a decisive advantage, Politico said, with gas prices favoring Romney and women’s issues in Obama’s camp.”
The Untouchables by Gary North
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20049744-10391709.html?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea.1
BANKERS ARE STILL CORRUPT JUST LIKE THE COURTS & THE GOVERNMENT. NO THIEF OR FRUADSTERs IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE. WHAT A COUNTRY !!!
HERE is a list of bank lenders that have been involved in this mortgage fraud. If you have been affected by one of these banks you may be entitled to money damages ! The following banks have signed consent orders with the FDIC and must produce original documents.
Aurora Bank / Everbank / One West Bank / Sovereign Bank / JP Morgan Chase / Wells Fargo / Citi Group / Ally Financial / HSBC / PNC Financial / US Bancorp / MET Life / Sun Trust
The following banks have also been involved with fraud - Deutsche Bank / IndyMac / Bank of America / Countrywide
The Untouchables by Gary North
BANKERS ARE STILL CORRUPT JUST LIKE THE COURTS & THE GOVERNMENT. NO THIEF OR FRUADSTERs IS HELD ACCOUNTABLE. WHAT A COUNTRY !!!
HERE is a list of bank lenders that have been involved in this mortgage fraud. If you have been affected by one of these banks you may be entitled to money damages ! The following banks have signed consent orders with the FDIC and must produce original documents.
Aurora Bank / Everbank / One West Bank / Sovereign Bank / JP Morgan Chase / Wells Fargo / Citi Group / Ally Financial / HSBC / PNC Financial / US Bancorp / MET Life / Sun Trust
The following banks have also been involved with fraud - Deutsche Bank / IndyMac / Bank of America / Countrywide
The Untouchables by Gary North
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Stop or the Senior Citizen Will Shoot! Moment 71-Year-Old Gunman Shot Two Robbers as They Tried to Hold Up Florida Internet Cafe
Stop or the Senior Citizen Will Shoot! Moment 71-Year-Old Gunman Shot Two Robbers as They Tried to Hold Up Florida Internet Cafe
He shot 'em. That is, the presence of a gun in the hands of an ordinary citizen turned what was a couple of thugs robbing a business and its patrons, and which might have ended up with some of the patrons, the business' employees or both laying dead in a pool of blood into two thugs in jail with some extra holes in their bodies. The thugs, for their part, complained that "they weren't going to shoot anyone."
That's why they were waving a gun around, right?
Incidentally, for the person on the "business end" of a firearm it's not possible to know whether (1) the gun will work or (2) most of the time, if it's loaded. If you can see the rifling a fair (and lawful) presumption is that the person pointing it at you is prepared to kill you -- period. If the person doing the pointing is engaged in an unlawful act at the time they've already declared their willingness to ignore the law and thus it is fair to assume they're willing to commit homicide as well.
Scratch two thugs from the street, for a while anyway. Unfortunately our "Just-US" system will likely let these two jackals out far before it should.
Florida, and indeed the rest of the country, should adopt not just "must-issue" concealed carry but rather Constitutional Carry.
The clause in the Second Amendment is very clear: shall not be infringed. If I wish to carry a firearm, openly or concealed, I have the constitutionally-protected right to do so. Note that the Constitution doesn't give me that right, it protects it. I have that right as a consequence of the unalienable right to life and liberty, which are not the government's to give. If someone intends to take either from me by force I have the right to resist.
That Government often infringes rights should not be surprising. It does. In fact, that seems to be what government does best! But this does not make it right -- it just means that they have more guns and more goons, and the people have not reached their tolerance point.
Nonetheless, we occasionally get very-public object lessons of what the law should be and should protect.
This is one of them.
Unfortunately we also get negative object lessons. Like this one:
According to a Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman, two deputies showed up at Scott's unit around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. They were looking for attempted murder suspect Jonathan Brown. Deputies said they found Brown's motorcycle in front of Scott's apartment and believed Brown was inside.
They said they knocked on the door and when Scott opened the door, he had a gun in his hand.Deputies said Scott had the gun pointed in their direction, so one of the deputies opened fire, killing Scott.
FOX 35 news has also learned the deputies did not announce they were law enforcement when they knocked. They said they didn't announce themselves out of fear the suspect would run. A deputy spokesman said it's not required to announce themselves in these situations.
Here's the problem -- the man they sought wasn't in the apartment. By definition an apartment building has a lot of residences served by a common parking lot.
The police were not in "hot pursuit"; they didn't see the alleged perpetrator they were seeking going into the unit, for example. They could have sought a warrant, they could have sought to confirm the man was in the apartment first, they could have staked out the building with a perimeter and binoculars so he couldn't leave without them knowing about it and waited him out.
Instead they decided to knock on someone's door at 2:00 AM without announcing that they were law enforcement officers and when the person who answered it did so while armed, a perfectly reasonable thing to do when someone knocks on your door at 2:00 AM unannounced, they shot him.
So who's in the wrong here? It's not an easy question to answer. Clearly there wasn't intent to shoot the resident, who was not the target of the investigation. But there were also decisions taken by the police in this instance that were unnecessary and ultimately proved wrong in that their "suspicion" that the man was inside the unit was unsupported by anything particular -- remember, this is the case of "which door is he behind, if any?" given that all they had was a vehicle registered to him in the parking lot.
We can and must demand that those who hold themselves out as professionals, including police officers, live to and operate under a higher standard of conduct than ordinary citizens. If I hold myself out as an Internet Security professional (and I do) I'm expected to know more about anti-virus programs, firewalls and similar things than the common person. My standard of conduct that meets "reasonable and due care" is thus higher than yours, if you're simply someone using a computer to write a business document or surf the Internet.
The same standards must apply to professional law enforcement officers. Carrying a firearm is a serious responsibility and doing so as part of one's job even more so. When a police officer or department makes a decision to bang on someone's door at 2:00 AM unannounced they must accept the fact that the occupants, if they are not criminals, are well-within their rights to assume that the person doing the banging has a high probability of being a criminal, not a cop. This doesn't give the occupant the right to shoot, but it sure does give him or her the right to answer the door prepared to defend himself.
The professional -- in this case the cop -- is the one with the higher duty of care and standard of performance.
Based on the information presented thus far I believe manslaughter charges are in order for the officers in question, and that the Lake County Sheriff's department (along with the rest of the Sheriffs in Florida) should give serious consideration to changing policy such that "inquiries" of this sort should be reserved for circumstances where other alternatives, such as staking out the location, are unavailable due to exigent circumstance (e.g. a known or suspected active hostage situation.)
He shot 'em. That is, the presence of a gun in the hands of an ordinary citizen turned what was a couple of thugs robbing a business and its patrons, and which might have ended up with some of the patrons, the business' employees or both laying dead in a pool of blood into two thugs in jail with some extra holes in their bodies. The thugs, for their part, complained that "they weren't going to shoot anyone."
That's why they were waving a gun around, right?
Incidentally, for the person on the "business end" of a firearm it's not possible to know whether (1) the gun will work or (2) most of the time, if it's loaded. If you can see the rifling a fair (and lawful) presumption is that the person pointing it at you is prepared to kill you -- period. If the person doing the pointing is engaged in an unlawful act at the time they've already declared their willingness to ignore the law and thus it is fair to assume they're willing to commit homicide as well.
Scratch two thugs from the street, for a while anyway. Unfortunately our "Just-US" system will likely let these two jackals out far before it should.
Florida, and indeed the rest of the country, should adopt not just "must-issue" concealed carry but rather Constitutional Carry.
The clause in the Second Amendment is very clear: shall not be infringed. If I wish to carry a firearm, openly or concealed, I have the constitutionally-protected right to do so. Note that the Constitution doesn't give me that right, it protects it. I have that right as a consequence of the unalienable right to life and liberty, which are not the government's to give. If someone intends to take either from me by force I have the right to resist.
That Government often infringes rights should not be surprising. It does. In fact, that seems to be what government does best! But this does not make it right -- it just means that they have more guns and more goons, and the people have not reached their tolerance point.
Nonetheless, we occasionally get very-public object lessons of what the law should be and should protect.
This is one of them.
Unfortunately we also get negative object lessons. Like this one:
According to a Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman, two deputies showed up at Scott's unit around 2 a.m. Sunday morning. They were looking for attempted murder suspect Jonathan Brown. Deputies said they found Brown's motorcycle in front of Scott's apartment and believed Brown was inside.
They said they knocked on the door and when Scott opened the door, he had a gun in his hand.Deputies said Scott had the gun pointed in their direction, so one of the deputies opened fire, killing Scott.
FOX 35 news has also learned the deputies did not announce they were law enforcement when they knocked. They said they didn't announce themselves out of fear the suspect would run. A deputy spokesman said it's not required to announce themselves in these situations.
Here's the problem -- the man they sought wasn't in the apartment. By definition an apartment building has a lot of residences served by a common parking lot.
The police were not in "hot pursuit"; they didn't see the alleged perpetrator they were seeking going into the unit, for example. They could have sought a warrant, they could have sought to confirm the man was in the apartment first, they could have staked out the building with a perimeter and binoculars so he couldn't leave without them knowing about it and waited him out.
Instead they decided to knock on someone's door at 2:00 AM without announcing that they were law enforcement officers and when the person who answered it did so while armed, a perfectly reasonable thing to do when someone knocks on your door at 2:00 AM unannounced, they shot him.
So who's in the wrong here? It's not an easy question to answer. Clearly there wasn't intent to shoot the resident, who was not the target of the investigation. But there were also decisions taken by the police in this instance that were unnecessary and ultimately proved wrong in that their "suspicion" that the man was inside the unit was unsupported by anything particular -- remember, this is the case of "which door is he behind, if any?" given that all they had was a vehicle registered to him in the parking lot.
We can and must demand that those who hold themselves out as professionals, including police officers, live to and operate under a higher standard of conduct than ordinary citizens. If I hold myself out as an Internet Security professional (and I do) I'm expected to know more about anti-virus programs, firewalls and similar things than the common person. My standard of conduct that meets "reasonable and due care" is thus higher than yours, if you're simply someone using a computer to write a business document or surf the Internet.
The same standards must apply to professional law enforcement officers. Carrying a firearm is a serious responsibility and doing so as part of one's job even more so. When a police officer or department makes a decision to bang on someone's door at 2:00 AM unannounced they must accept the fact that the occupants, if they are not criminals, are well-within their rights to assume that the person doing the banging has a high probability of being a criminal, not a cop. This doesn't give the occupant the right to shoot, but it sure does give him or her the right to answer the door prepared to defend himself.
The professional -- in this case the cop -- is the one with the higher duty of care and standard of performance.
Based on the information presented thus far I believe manslaughter charges are in order for the officers in question, and that the Lake County Sheriff's department (along with the rest of the Sheriffs in Florida) should give serious consideration to changing policy such that "inquiries" of this sort should be reserved for circumstances where other alternatives, such as staking out the location, are unavailable due to exigent circumstance (e.g. a known or suspected active hostage situation.)
Monday, July 16, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Do Catholics Have Too Many Babies? by Andrew P. Napolitano
Do Catholics Have Too Many Babies? by Andrew P. Napolitano
When we were colonists and fought a war against the king and Parliament so that we could secede from the British Empire and be independent of it, we also fought for the value of personal freedom. That is the idea that in matters of personal choice, the government should play no role. The king only cared about the colonists' personal choices if he could control or tax them.
One of the taxes he imposed was to support the Church of England. The Church of England that the colonists' tax dollars supported was, of course, in England; it was not here. So, among the hateful taxes that impelled the colonists to revolt was this tax to support the king's church.
When the Constitution was written, religious freedom was a principal matter for discussion and debate among the Framers. They addressed this in the first clause of the First Amendment. Before the Constitution even protects the freedom of speech, it protects the natural right to worship or not to worship, free from the government. Here is what it says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
That is very direct and clear. It was intended to prevent any tax money from going to a church, and it was intended to keep the government from using its coercive powers to influence or to punish religious institutions. For 125 years, most governments in America left churches alone.
Then along came the progressive attitude that some ethnic groups are superior to others. This is a damnable and racist view that was foist upon the federal government by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, in direct response to the influx of southern European immigrants at the beginning of the last century, most of whom were Catholic. Roosevelt and Wilson and their progressive followers thought these immigrants had too many children, children who would grow up to be voters and vote out their Nanny State central-planning values. So they began to encourage birth control and sterilizations and even abortions.
The Catholic Church resisted this by its teachings on birth control. The Church had made its teaching on contraception a core part of its mission for 400 years, and Pope Paul VI reaffirmed these teachings in a permanent way in 1968. That the Church embraces these teachings is well known, and equally as well known is the policy of the federal government to resist them.
But that resistance reached unconstitutional proportions a few weeks ago when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, herself a Catholic, issued regulations that require all employers in America to provide health insurance that makes contraceptive materials and devices available to their employees. The "all employers" includes Catholic universities, Catholic hospitals, Catholic schools and even local Catholic churches. The failure to comply with this law will result in a fine to these institutions and the provision of contraceptive coverage to their employees by the government itself.
This is quite literally Congress making a law that interferes with the free exercise of religion. This is not about the morality of contraception. This is about the constitutionality of government coercion, coercion of religious institutions, coercion directly and profoundly prohibited by the Constitution itself. The motivation for the coercion – that Catholics have too many babies – is reprehensible, and those in government who embrace that and are willing to use the power of government to resist that should be voted out of office. But the coercion is the same as that faced by the folks who seceded from England because of the king's tax to pay for his church.
We have a king today, and he wants a tax to pay for his church. The king is the president, and his church is called Obamacare. We can't let this happen here. This is not just a Catholic issue. This is an issue about whether the Constitution means what it says. Does the Constitution let the government compel Jews to eat pork, or Protestants to genuflect, or Muslims to own dogs, or Catholics to pay for contraception? The answer is obvious.
Reprinted with the author's permission.
February 9, 2012
When we were colonists and fought a war against the king and Parliament so that we could secede from the British Empire and be independent of it, we also fought for the value of personal freedom. That is the idea that in matters of personal choice, the government should play no role. The king only cared about the colonists' personal choices if he could control or tax them.
One of the taxes he imposed was to support the Church of England. The Church of England that the colonists' tax dollars supported was, of course, in England; it was not here. So, among the hateful taxes that impelled the colonists to revolt was this tax to support the king's church.
When the Constitution was written, religious freedom was a principal matter for discussion and debate among the Framers. They addressed this in the first clause of the First Amendment. Before the Constitution even protects the freedom of speech, it protects the natural right to worship or not to worship, free from the government. Here is what it says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
That is very direct and clear. It was intended to prevent any tax money from going to a church, and it was intended to keep the government from using its coercive powers to influence or to punish religious institutions. For 125 years, most governments in America left churches alone.
Then along came the progressive attitude that some ethnic groups are superior to others. This is a damnable and racist view that was foist upon the federal government by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, in direct response to the influx of southern European immigrants at the beginning of the last century, most of whom were Catholic. Roosevelt and Wilson and their progressive followers thought these immigrants had too many children, children who would grow up to be voters and vote out their Nanny State central-planning values. So they began to encourage birth control and sterilizations and even abortions.
The Catholic Church resisted this by its teachings on birth control. The Church had made its teaching on contraception a core part of its mission for 400 years, and Pope Paul VI reaffirmed these teachings in a permanent way in 1968. That the Church embraces these teachings is well known, and equally as well known is the policy of the federal government to resist them.
But that resistance reached unconstitutional proportions a few weeks ago when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, herself a Catholic, issued regulations that require all employers in America to provide health insurance that makes contraceptive materials and devices available to their employees. The "all employers" includes Catholic universities, Catholic hospitals, Catholic schools and even local Catholic churches. The failure to comply with this law will result in a fine to these institutions and the provision of contraceptive coverage to their employees by the government itself.
This is quite literally Congress making a law that interferes with the free exercise of religion. This is not about the morality of contraception. This is about the constitutionality of government coercion, coercion of religious institutions, coercion directly and profoundly prohibited by the Constitution itself. The motivation for the coercion – that Catholics have too many babies – is reprehensible, and those in government who embrace that and are willing to use the power of government to resist that should be voted out of office. But the coercion is the same as that faced by the folks who seceded from England because of the king's tax to pay for his church.
We have a king today, and he wants a tax to pay for his church. The king is the president, and his church is called Obamacare. We can't let this happen here. This is not just a Catholic issue. This is an issue about whether the Constitution means what it says. Does the Constitution let the government compel Jews to eat pork, or Protestants to genuflect, or Muslims to own dogs, or Catholics to pay for contraception? The answer is obvious.
Reprinted with the author's permission.
February 9, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
