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

"it could have been worse" narriated by larry david

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 !!!

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

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.”

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

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.”