Constitutional Law Is Supposed to Be Different

"After citing such Supreme Court precedents, Dean Chemerinsky concluded that they proved that a challenge to Obamacare "has no basis in the law." However, virtually every case relied on a serious deviation from the Constitution. In fact, two of those precedents referred to (but not identified) -- Wickard v. Filburn and Helvering v. Davis -- were the first two examples in Robert Levy and William Mellor's The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom, and two more -- Gonzalez v. Raich and United States v. Butler -- were singled out for dishonorable mention. Therefore, it is clear that if the Constitution itself is still considered "the highest law of the land," rather than precedents that twist it, there is indeed an overwhelming case for overturning Obamacare."

Constitutional Law Is Supposed to Be Different
January 6, 2012 by Gary Galles

Constitutional law is supposed to be different from other types of law. But the Obamacare litigation headed to the Supreme Court shows that liberal interpreters of the Constitution have forgotten the distinction.

In common law, intended to maintain the continuity of legitimate expectations, later rulings carry more precedential weight than earlier rulings. Similarly, later legislation can change earlier laws. But the Constitution is supposed to remain "the supreme law of the land;" later deviations are not to create precedents that effectively re-write the Constitution.

Nowhere is the distinctiveness of constitutional law made clearer than in Federalist 78, by Alexander Hamilton, ironically the most "big government" of our founders.

"[C]ourts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments."

"[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing."

"[T]he courts were designed … to keep the [legislature] within the limits assigned to their authority."

"[W]here the will of the legislature, declared in its statues, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former."

"No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid."

"[I]t will be the duty of the judicial tribunals…to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals … "

In Hamilton's words, as in those of many of America's founders, courts must actively maintain constitutional rights against executive or legislative overreaching of their enumerated powers. And that maintenance requires that later divergent precedents are not allowed to preempt the Constitution's meaning.

However, the liberal "living Constitution" approach has turned the argument of Federalist 78 on its head. Divergent precedents are substituted for the Constitution, which effectively become the "new and improved" highest law of the land

Perhaps the most striking recent example comes from University of California, Irvine, Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a leading liberal Constitutional interpreter, in "Healthy care reform is constitutional," written for Politico when Constitutional challenges to Obamacare made it clear it would end up before the Supreme Court.

In asserting that constitutional challenges have "no legal merit," Chemerinsky makes only one direct reference to the Constitution ­ Article I, Section 8 s Commerce Clause. Even then, his reasoning was not based on the Commerce Clause, but that "The Supreme Court has held that this included authority to regulate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce" (a precedent which allowed the Commerce Clause to be vastly expanded, creating the sole supposedly constitutional justification for the far-reaching new federal regulatory powers that have since multiplied).

Unfortunately, Dean Chemerinsky ignored the Commerce Clause's application for a century.

Federalist 11 described the Commerce Clause as "a prohibitory regulation, extending … throughout the states," without which, "this intercourse would be fettered, interrupted and narrowed." Similarly, Federalist 42 described its role as one of "restraints imposed on the authority of the States" to restrict interstate commerce, rather than authorizing federal dictation of anything remotely related to commerce.

Federalist 45 cemented the Commerce Clause's narrow scope: "The powers delegated…to the Federal Government, are few and defined … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and prosperities of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State." This stringent constraint on federal power made the Commerce Clause one "from which no apprehensions are entertained." That last statement is particularly revealing, since founders determined to create a limited federal government with only enumerated powers would not have accepted a clause now jokingly called "the everything clause" in law schools, much less without apprehension about how it could turn a limited federal government into a virtually unlimited federal government.

Until 1887, the Commerce Clause was solely invoked to overturn state restrictions on interstate commerce. But then courts began re-interpreting its ban of state-imposed restrictions into an open invitation to almost unlimited federal dictates, particularly in Wickard v. Filburn, in 1942 (the precedent Chemerinsky refers to as definitive constitutional interpretation of the Commerce Clause).

Justice Jackson asserted that "Even if appellee's activities be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce." In other words, the federal power to make interstate commerce regular was twisted to allow banning (far from "removing impediments" to) production (not commerce) occurring in a single state (not among states), on someone's own private property (which Federalist 45 clearly placed under State control). Anything judged to have a "substantial" effect on commerce (now often equivalent to "having any tenuous connection to") became fair game for federal regulation.

While never again referring to the Constitution itself, Dean Chemerinsky then uses various versions of "the Supreme Court has held" (or said) seven more times in his article, as if multiplying such precedents proves Obamacare is constitutional.

However, four of those references are to cases that accepted the Wickard precedent (while two important cases limiting its application were omitted), so they do not really represent additional precedents, for the question is whether Wickard's ruling upholds the Constitution, making it a valid precedent, or whether it is inconsistent with the Constitution, in which case it should be considered invalid.

Yet another reference to Wickard was that "the Supreme Court never has said that the commerce power is limited to regulating those who are engaged in commercial activity." However, whether the Supreme Court has said that is irrelevant, since a century of usage made clear that only commercial activity was in view (and, at least as important, the power envisioned was the power to strike down state restrictions on interstate commerce, not to find some connection to commerce in order to impose federal restrictions on it).

One of the two other Supreme Court references Dean Chemerinsky made was that "Since the 1930s, the Supreme Court has accorded Congress broad powers to tax and spend for the general welfare and has left it to Congress to determine this." Unfortunately, that precedent is also inconsistent with the original understanding of the General Welfare clause. As James Madison, "the father of the Constitution" put it, "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions…the phrase…was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers…" Further, "If Congress…are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare…everything… would be thrown under the power of Congress … "

After citing such Supreme Court precedents, Dean Chemerinsky concluded that they proved that a challenge to Obamacare "has no basis in the law." However, virtually every case relied on a serious deviation from the Constitution. In fact, two of those precedents referred to (but not identified) -- Wickard v. Filburn and Helvering v. Davis -- were the first two examples in Robert Levy and William Mellor's The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom, and two more -- Gonzalez v. Raich and United States v. Butler -- were singled out for dishonorable mention. Therefore, it is clear that if the Constitution itself is still considered "the highest law of the land," rather than precedents that twist it, there is indeed an overwhelming case for overturning Obamacare.

That is why the distinction between constitutional law and other types of law when it comes to precedents, is so important. Should we be faithful to the Constitution, and the sharply limited federal government of enumerated powers it created, as the earlier, controlling precedent, or should we accept precedents that have already warped it almost beyond recognition? After all, if the meaning of the Constitution can easily be changed by innovative judicial interpretations, rather than being required to attain the degree of consensus necessary to survive the difficult process spelled out by our founders for constitutional changes, then it cannot be the highest law of the land in practice.

In an important sense, what is at stake in the Obamacare case is the dominant pattern of Supreme Court activity we have seen since the 1930s. Liberal courts create new rights, expanding government powers or eroding freedoms from government control, then conservative courts, out of misguided deference to those precedents, leave them in place. They often make things worse by building further precedents upon them, rather than rolling them back.

Further, if the Supreme Court must defer to earlier precedents, there is no respectable defense for those activist rulings (such as from the New Deal and Warren courts) liberals are now so desperate to defend, since they clearly deviated from earlier constitutional precedents.

Principled interpreters of the Constitution do not advocate overturning precedents that protect citizens from government abuse, which was the primary purpose of the Constitution. That is the essence of what they wish to maintain. But doing so requires overturning laws and precedents blatantly inconsistent with it, to reinstate those rights and protections that have been eroded since it was written.

If the Supreme Court follows the Constitution, Obamacare will be overturned. If Wickard's almost unlimited discretion is further expanded (to whether the court will, for the first time, hold that Congress has the power to override non-commerce (choosing not to buy insurance) in the name of regulating commerce), it will be upheld.

The Supreme Court's consideration of Obamacare offers both hope that important constitutional restrictions on the federal government will be reestablished and risk that they will be further gutted. As Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in the 1995 Lopez ruling (one of the cases omitted by Chemerinsky), "If we were to accept the government's arguments, we are hard-pressed to posit any activity by an individual that Congress is without power to regulate," a chilling prospect for Americans and their liberties. That is, the central issue is whether the Supreme Court will reinstate the Constitution as supreme over precedents that deviate from it. If those radically different precedents are instead upheld, the limits imposed by the Constitution are already a dead letter; it is no more than what James Madison called a mere "parchment barrier" that fails to protect Americans' rights.

http://blog.mises.org/20302/constitutional-law-is-supposed-to-be-different/#more-20302

Judge Napolitano: What if they're lying to you ,,, - Fox Business

Judge Napolitano: What if they're lying to you ,,,  - Fox Business
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD_ybaXhXno&feature=player_embedded

Jon vs. Ron

Jon vs. Ron
Huntsman was the GOP's great moderate hope. Now he can't win liberal voters away from … Ron Paul?
By David Weigel|Posted Saturday, Jan. 7, 2012, at 12:56 PM ET

NASHUA, N.H.­If you showed up on time for Ron Paul's first New Hampshire rally since the Iowa caucuses, you had to be prepared to walk. A parking lot outside a Nashua air hangar filled up long before the event began, and helpful security guards turned cars away from the private lots nearby. Paul's people, undeterred, parked along the winding road from downtown. By the time Paul started, there were cars with "Don't Tread on Me" and "R3VOLUTION" and "Campaign for Liberty" stickers stretching for a mile.

Inside the hangar: Homemade signs, bed sheets with Paul slogans written on them, four miniature Ron Paul blimps and more than 600 joyful fans. Some of them had planted the Ron Paul banners hanging on overpasses throughout southern New Hampshire. They interrupt every other sentence with applause and chants.

"Two weeks ago," says Paul, "they passed this very, very unordinary national defense authorization."
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A woman next to me, hair midway through the process of dreadlockization, yells "Traitors!"

"The rest of the country," says Paul, "better find out what's in that bill!"

"Wake up!" she yells.

Paul talks the crowd through foreign policy, "the whole idea of controlling the Internet," the unjustness of holding prisoners without trials, the malaise that sets in after three years of recession. "They're frustrated with the leadership of both parties. They never see anything change. But they know darn well I will stick to my guns and put in that office­"

He's drowned out. The crowd has started chanting: "President Paul! President Paul! President Paul!"

By this point I'm thinking back to Jon Huntsman's town hall in Newport, less than 24 hours earlier. It was massive, by Huntsman standards­around a third the size of Paul's rally. Another reporter whispered to me that it looked like a cleaned-up general election rally, and it did, with spotlights and flat-screen Vizio TVs bearing the slogan "Newport for Huntsman." And the candidate was copping Paul's lines, especially on foreign policy.

"We've done what we can do, folks," he said. "I say, I want to bring our troops home. I want to say, we don't need to be nation-building in Asia when this nation so desperately needs our attention. We don't have a foreign policy that's worth anything when we're weak at home." Big applause. "Iraq is not our nation's future. Afghanistan is not our nation's future."

Huntsman is giving New Hampshire's anti-war, liberal voter a choice. Go with Ron Paul, and end up in a walled-off cul de sac of the GOP with no influence. Or go with Huntsman, who can win, beat Barack Obama and shut down the last 11 years of foreign policy clown shows.

The strategy isn't working for Huntsman. Ron Paul, probably the most conservative Republican candidate to poll this high since Pat Buchanan, is choking off Huntsman's path to liberal voters. In Iowa, where anyone could change his registration by filling out a simple card at the caucuses, Paul won 43 percent of independents, beating Romney by 24 points. He won 40 percent of "moderate or liberal voters," beating Romney by 5. In a WMUR poll of New Hampshire voters [PDF] released on Friday, Paul was winning the allegiance of "undeclared" voters over Romney, 37 to 32, and winning former Democrats­if they switched their registrations recently, they can vote here­by 1 point. Huntsman was lagging in the teens.

How, if you're on Team Huntsman, is this fair? How can the absent-minded editor of the Ron Paul Survival Report be winning independents and liberals? Welcome to Operation Conservatize Ron Paul. Since Dec. 29, the Huntsman campaign has been putting out Web videos (not TV ads) clipping together glue-huffing conspiracy talk from the old Paul letters with footage of Paul dithering about their origins. On Jan. 4, Huntsman appeared right after Paul on Piers Morgan Tonight and milked a silly story about a Paul campaign tweet that mocked Huntsman's poor showing in Iowa. "You think he would have learned the perils of ghost-written subject matter by now," Huntsman said.

Attacking Paul for his own bad decisions hasn't made a dent. Huntsman has evolved to Phase II: attacking Paul for stuff that may or may not be sort of inspired by him, possibly. The Huntsman campaign has spent two days demanding contrition from Paul because a suspiciously new YouTube member named "NHLiberty4Paul" published a video­the account's only video­portraying the former ambassador to China as a shadowy double agent who can't stop adopting non-white babies. There's no hard evidence connecting the video to Paul, but the Huntsman campaign goaded Paul into denouncing it, inspiring headlines like "Huntsman blasts Paul backer's ad calling him 'Manchurian candidate.' "

Team Huntsman needs liberals to hear this stuff and turn away from the nice old doctor with the anti-war views. "Paul likes to play the crazy uncle who doesn't know how this stuff comes," explained Huntsman campaign strategist John Weaver in an interview before the Newport town hall. "I think people are figuring it out."

The Paul campaign sees this as desperation, a winded boxer swinging in the 15^th round with puffed-up eyelids and rubbery knees. The newsletter story is on hold; it burbled up again over the slow holidays, but Paul's narrow defeat in Iowa seems to have dulled some of his scrutiny. Paul's been polling second in New Hampshire for weeks, and as long as that's true, voters may feel it makes more sense to register an anti-war vote with him than with Huntsman. In fact Paul's supporters, die-hards and recent converts, are almost insulted when you ask whom else they like. Ken Akiyama, who came to the rally wearing a "Veterans for Ron Paul" shirt and camo pants, discovered Paul on a combative O'Reilly Factor interview. His candidate had nothing in common with Huntsman.

"I stopped looking at Huntsman when he said we'd show other nations what it meant to be a friend of America," he said. "That's arrogant and revealing."

Other Paul voters ran down the weaknesses in the Huntsman pitch. He hadn't ruled out war with Iran. He didn't talk about sound money. He pandered, and Paul didn't. I talked to Teshia O'Keefe as she and her friend Kristin rolled up a 4x12 homemade Paul sign. She, too, only discovered Paul after 2008. Her big issues were the National Defense Authorization Act and the wars. Why would she ever back Huntsman?

"I'm pretty sure he worked for the Federal Reserve," she said. "He was a weak governor, from what I've heard, and he's a dark person­we don't know much about him except that he worked for Obama."

Left unsaid: Paul's people don't need to know much about him. Liberals have been told all year, most memorably by Jon Stewart, that Paul's the outsider candidate the GOP hates. They've got a chance to get him delegates in New Hampshire. They're supposed to give that up for Jon Huntsman?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/01/huntsman_vs_paul_jon_huntsman_struggles_to_win_liberal_voters_away_from_ron_paul.single.html

The New York Times versus Ron Paul

The New York Times versus Ron Paul
by George Selgin December 28th, 2011 7:00 pm

December 28, 2011

Editor
The New York Times

Sir,

As you claim that Ron Paul's belief that the Federal Reserve should be abolished disqualifies him for the presidency ( "Mr. Paul's Discredited Campaign," December 27), and thereby appear to be convinced that no alternative to the Fed could possibly do better, we wish to alert you to our recent research reaching the opposite conclusion ("Has the Fed Been a Failure?" Cato Institute Working Paper no. 2, forthcoming in the Journal of Macroeconomics). We wonder as well about the grounds, apart from mere a priori convictions, for your contrary opinion.

Sincerely,

George Selgin, professor of economics, the University of Georgia;
William Lastrapes, professor of economics, the University of Georgia;
Lawrence H. White, professor of economics, George Mason University.

http://www.freebanking.org/2011/12/28/the-new-york-times-versus-ron-paul/

The Three Faces of Jon Huntsman

The Three Faces of Jon Huntsman
Justin Raimondo, January 06, 2012

Someone is playing games on Youtube, and they've managed to fool an awful lot of people – mostly "reporters" and bloggers who hate Ron Paul – into falling for one of the more transparent hoaxes of this election season.

It all started with an incredibly stupid video posted on Youtube by "NHLiberty4Paul" accusing Jon Huntsman of being a Chinese agent ­ a "Manchurian candidate" ­ and making fun of his daughters. The Huntsman campaign was quick to pounce on this, responding very quickly with a blast of righteous indignation from Huntsman himself.

Of course, anyone can post anything on Youtube, and the content of the video – in the course of which Huntsman is called a "Chicom" – is not something an authentic Ron Paul supporter would say. The complete lack of evidence that the Paul campaign was behind it didn't stop Huntsman, however, nor did it stop the Usual Suspects from glomming on to the video as "evidence" of Paul's perfidy. The Huffington Post jumped on the "story," as did Gawker (natch!), Breitbart.com, and RedState.com.

There's just one problem with this "story" – it has a sequel. Hours after the now-infamous video was put up yet another video was posted by "NH4MittRomney," and, subsequently, by " NH4Santorum" – the same video that is supposed to be the work of Paul's supporters. What's funny is that "NH4Santorum" is posting comments under the other two Youtube pages. On the page attributed to "NHLiberty4Paul" he advertises his latest masterpiece: "Watch our ad about Huntsman on our chanel [sic] !!! rick also dislikes huntsman!" He (or she) also points out to one commenter on the Santorum page that "Rick has the same opinion as the Paul-supporters [sic]." Meanwhile, "NH4MittRomney" pays a visit to "NHLiberty4Paul"'s page and advertises his wares.

It's the political version of "The Three Faces of Eve."

So who is behind all this? Someone took a screen shot of the earliest statistics of the "NHLiberty4Paul" page: it clearly shows that one of the first four visitors to the page (aside from its creator) came from the Huntsman web site, jon2012.com.

Pretty quick on the draw, those Huntsman people ­ a little too quick, wouldn't you say? If you suspect this is a case of "The Three Faces of Jon Huntsman" ­ that the Huntsman campaign, or one of his one fanatical supporters, is responsible ­ I won't argue with you. It does seem odd that whoever posted the video just happened to have footage of Huntsman's daughters that I haven't seen anywhere else. However, the following scenario seems far more likely to me:

Some fool put up a nasty video and made it look like the work of a Paul supporter, and Huntsman immediately went nuclear, blaming the Paul campaign. Even as Huntsman was playing the victim, the same idiot was putting up the same  video trying to make it look like the work of supporters of Romney and Santorum. Huntsman has been hoaxed ­ but don't hold your breath waiting for a retraction.

Question: if Huntsman flies off the handle this easily, and can be taken in by a transparently obvious prank like this stupid video, then do we really want his finger on the nuclear trigger?

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2012/01/06/the-three-faces-of-jon-huntsman/

Mainstream Media Lies: 23 Things That Are Not What They Seem To Be On Television

Mainstream Media Lies: 23 Things That Are Not What They Seem To Be On Television

Most Americans believe the lie that the mainstream media is "fair and balanced" and is looking out for the interests of average Americans.  Well, that simply is not true.  Those in the mainstream media serve those that are providing them with paychecks.  The reality is that just 6 gigantic corporations collectively own most of the major mainstream media outlets in this country.  Reporters are simply not going to be allowed to report stories that are severely damaging to those corporations or to the owners of those corporations.  In addition, reporters are simply not going to be allowed to report stories that are severely damaging to those that spend millions of dollars on advertising (such as pharmaceutical companies) on those mainstream media outlets.  At this point, our "news" is absolutely packed with propaganda.  Way too often, things are not what they seem to be on television.  The mainstream media lies, lies and then lies some more.  They give us the version of "reality" that their owners want us to have.

The following are 23 things that are not what they seem to be on television....

The Lie: Mitt Romney won Iowa.

The Truth: Mitt Romney may not have won Iowa.  The following report of a documented vote discrepancy comes from KCCI....

Edward True, 28, of Moulton, said he helped count the votes and jotted the results down on a piece of paper to post to his Facebook page. He said when he checked to make sure the Republican Party of Iowa got the count right, he said he was shocked to find they hadn't.

"When Mitt Romney won Iowa by eight votes and I've got a 20-vote discrepancy here, that right there says Rick Santorum won Iowa," True said. "Not Mitt Romney."

True said at his 53-person caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library, Romney received two votes. According to the Iowa Republican Party's website, True's precinct cast 22 votes for Romney.

So how many other "vote discrepancies" were there in Iowa?  Was this just a "coincidence" or did someone do this on purpose?

The Lie: Barack Obama will be much different from George W. Bush and will actually protect our civil liberties.

The Truth: Under Barack Obama we have lost even more of our civil liberties than we did under George W. Bush.  Barack Obama recently signed a new law that gives the U.S. military the power to arrest U.S. citizens on American soil, detain them indefinitely and ship them off to Guantanamo Bay for endless "interrogation" sessions.

The Lie: SOPA is all about cracking down on international sellers of counterfeit goods.

The Truth: SOPA is all about censoring the Internet and cracking down on websites that the federal government does not like.

The Lie: The U.S. unemployment rate is now at 8.5% and will continue to fall as the U.S. economy recovers.

The Truth: If the number of Americans considered to be "looking for work" was the same today as it was back in 2007, the "official" unemployment rate put out by the U.S. government would about 11 percent, and the U.S. middle class continues to be systematically destroyed right in front of our eyes.

The Lie: The debt crisis in Europe has been stabilized and the euro is going to be just fine.

The Truth: The debt crisis in Europe continues to get worse and the euro is dropping like a rock.

The Lie: The U.S. stock market is in great shape and is poised to soar to new heights in 2012.

The Truth: Investors are pulling money out of stocks at an alarming rate.  In fact, as CNBC recently noted, investors have pulled more money out of mutual funds than they have put into mutual funds for 9 weeks in a row.  A lot of people out there expect that something really bad is going to happen very soon....

Investors yanked money out of U.S. equity mutual funds for a ninth-consecutive week despite a bullish 2012 outlook from Wall Street and a December rally that's carried over into the New Year.

The Lie: There are no plans to replace the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency.

The Truth: Top financial authorities all over the world have been developing plans for a new global currency for a long time.  The following comes from a CNN article....

The International Monetary Fund issued a report Thursday on a possible replacement for the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

The IMF said Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, could help stabilize the global financial system.

The Lie: There is not a municipal bond crisis in America.

The Truth: There is a growing municipal bond crisis in America.  Over the last several months a whole host of municipal bonds have been downgraded.  Just today, Moody's downgraded Illinois government debt from A2 to A.

The Lie: Chicago is a safe place to live.

The Truth: 14 people were shot across the Chicago area on Thursday alone.

The Lie: Federal employees are not overpaid.

The Truth: The federal government is advertising for an "invitations coordinator" that will make between $53,500 and $102,900 per year.

The Lie: The old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs are bad for the environment and it is a good thing that the federal government is requiring that they be phased out.

The Truth: The new CFL light bulbs are filled with mercury, they are an environmental nightmare and they are incredibly toxic and dangerous if they are broken.

The Lie: The U.S. education system is producing a huge crop of really sharp students who are prepared to be the leaders of tomorrow.

The Truth: The U.S. education system is a complete and total joke.  It is producing millions of students that are not prepared to face the real world at all.  The following is a short excerpt from a recent article by Mac Slavo that many of you will find illuminating....

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

Economics Professor Jack Chambless of Valencia College in Florida had his sophomore students write a short essay on what the American dream means to them and what, specifically, they wanted the federal government to do to help them achieve that dream.

The results demonstrate the sheer magnitude of the idiocy of a public education system dead set on indoctrination rather than education:

I took the essays from three classes – about 180 students…

About 10% of the students said they wanted the government to leave them alone and not tax them too much and let them regulate their own lives.

But over 80% of the students said that the American dream to them meant a job, a house, and plenty of money for retirement and vacations and things like this. When it came to the part about the federal government, eight out of ten students said they wanted free health care, they wanted the government to pay for their tuition, they wanted the government to pay for the down payment on their house, they expected the government to, quote, "give them a job." Many of them said they wanted the government to tax wealthier individuals so that they would have an opportunity to have a better life.

The following is an excerpt from one of the non-sensical essays written by a student of Professor Chambless:

"As human beings, we are not really responsible for our own acts, and so we need government to control those who don't care about others."

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

You can read the rest of that article right here.

The Lie: Specific social and political agendas are not promoted in U.S. public schools.

The Truth: According to CNSNews.com, a new California law makes it mandatory for all public school children to be taught the "role and contributions" that "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans" have played in the "development of California and the United States of America."

The Lie: We have to send our troops overseas to fight the terrorists "over there" or else they will come and fight us over here.

The Truth: Dozens of jihadist training camps are operating inside the United States right now and the federal government could not care less.  The following is from a recent WorldNetDaily article about a jihadist organization that is operating 35 training camps on U.S. soil right now....

Jamaat ul-Fuqra, known in the U.S. as "Muslims of America," has purchased or leased hundreds of acres of property – from New York to California – in which the leader, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, boasts of conducting "the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare."

In a recruitment video captured from Gilani's "Soldiers of Allah," he states in English: "We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America."

Though Gilani and his organization is suspected of committing assassinations and firebombings inside the U.S., and is also suspected of the beheading murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, the terrorist camps spread through the country continue to expand in numbers and population.

But apparently Islamic terror is only a "problem" when the federal government wants to use it to justify invading another country.

In fact, there have been several instances where the U.S. government has actually allied with al-Qaeda in order to overthrow governments.  The latest example of this was in Libya.

The Lie: Our politicians know exactly what they are doing and they have a plan for getting U.S. debt under control.

The Truth: When Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was less than 1 trillion dollars.  Today, the U.S. national debt is over 15.2 trillion dollars.  In spite of all this, the American people keep sending the same big spenders back to Washington D.C. over and over and over.

The Lie: The Obama administration is enforcing our immigration laws.

The Truth: The Obama administration has instituted " backdoor amnesty" for illegal immigrants and even plans to provide them with work permits.

The Lie: The number of earthquakes is not increasing.

The Truth: The number of earthquakes is increasing dramatically.  As the "Ring of Fire" continues to wake up the next few years could be very, very interesting.

The Lie: The nuclear crisis at Fukushima is under control and things are getting back to normal.

The Truth: Large areas around Fukushima will be uninhabitable for the indefinite future.  Back in April, I published an article entitled " Much Of Northern Japan Uninhabitable Due To Nuclear Radiation?"  At the time, almost everyone in the mainstream media was insisting that Fukushima was nothing like Chernobyl and that those that lived near Fukushima would be able to return to their homes fairly soon.

Well, it turns out that those of us that feared the worst were right after all.  Just consider the following quote from the New York Times....

Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.

The Lie: Fluoride is good for our teeth and we should put huge amounts of it into our drinking water.

The Truth: Fluoride is a very toxic sedative and can be very harmful to the teeth.  Incredibly, even the federal government is finally admitting that high levels of fluoride in our drinking water can be harmful.  In fact, the feds have reduced the "recommended amount" of fluoride in our drinking water for the first time in 50 years.

We probably won't see them ban fluoride any time soon, but for them to even acknowledge a problem with fluoride is a major step.  In a recent article on CNN, it was reported that the federal government is now saying that high levels of fluoride in the water have now officially been linked with fluorosis....

The Department of Health and Human Services and Environmental Protection Agency are proposing the change because of an increase in fluorosis -- a condition that causes spotting and streaking on children's teeth.

The Lie: Using cell phones is perfectly safe and they do not cause cancer.

The Truth: Using cell phones can definitely increase your risk for cancer.  Some very startling scientific studies have come out recently that are hard to ignore.

The following is an excerpt from a recent CNN article about one of these studies....

At the highest exposure levels -- using a mobile phone half an hour a day over a 10-year period -- the study found a 40 percent increased risk of glioma brain tumors.

The Lie: The federal government works very hard to keep dangerous prescription drugs from ever entering the marketplace.

The Truth: America's addiction to prescription drugs is getting a lot of people put into the ground.  Adverse reactions to prescription drugs kill a huge number of Americans every year.  A recent Vanity Fair article entitled " Deadly Medicine" began with the following statement....

Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas­on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese­in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn't reach, and "mistakes" can end up in pauper's graves?

The Lie: Members of Congress work really hard to fix the problems that this country is facing.

The Truth: Members of Congress work an average of about two and a half days per week.

The Lie: The United States has the best health care system in the world.

The Truth: The United States spends far more on health care than anyone else in the world, but we rank 50th in life expectancy, 47 countries have a lower infant mortality rate than we do and the federal government is chasing millions of good doctors out of the medical profession.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/mainstream-media-lies-23-things-that-are-not-what-they-seem-to-be-on-television

Is Romney any more eligible than Obama?!?!?!?!

George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American
businessman and Republican Party politician. He was chairman and CEO
of American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd Governor of
Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and the United States Secretary of Housing
and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973. He is the father of former
Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and the husband of former
Michigan U.S. Senate candidate Lenore Romney.
Romney was born to American parents in the Mormon colonies in Mexico;
events during the Mexican Revolution forced his family to move back to
the United States when he was a child. The family lived in several
states and ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they struggled
during the Great Depression. Romney worked in a number of jobs, served
as a Mormon missionary in England and Scotland, and attended two
universities in the U.S. but did not graduate from either. In 1939 he
moved to Detroit and joined the American Automobile Manufacturers
Association, where he served as the chief spokesperson for the
automobile industry during World War II and headed a cooperative
arrangement in which companies could share production improvements. He
joined Nash-Kelvinator in 1948, and became chairman and CEO of its
successor, American Motors Corporation in 1954. There he turned around
the struggling firm by focusing all efforts on the smaller Rambler
car. Romney mocked the products of the "Big Three" automakers as "gas-
guzzling dinosaurs" and became one of the first high-profile, media-
savvy business executives. Devoutly religious, Romney presided over
the Detroit Stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

While George Romney was born in Mexico, he was still considered a
viable and legal candidate for United States president. His Mormon
grandfather and his three wives had fled to Mexico in 1886, but none
of them ever relinquished U.S. citizenship. While the Constitution
requires that a president must be a natural-born citizen, the first
Congress of the United States in 1790 passed legislation stating: "The
children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the
sea, or outside the limits of the United States, shall be considered
as natural-born citizens of the United States." Romney and his family
fled Mexico in 1912 prior to the Mexican Revolution. However, the
Naturalization Act of 1795 repealed the Act of 1790[citation needed]
and removed the language explicitly stating that the children of U.S.
citizens are natural-born citizens. As such, it is not clear that
Romney was actually eligible for the office of president.

All of this makes Mitt the son of a Mexican Citizen. His father was
two generations removed from the US.

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Elmer Gantry Economics

"We can do better than Ron Paul," simpers this Pharisaical homunculus in an ad accusing Dr. Paul of various sins against national socialism: http://huff.to/zBHG9Z
Bauer's exquisite sense of morality wasn't offended by McCain (who traded in his first wife for his younger, richer mistress), or Gingrich (who "upgraded" twice), or by the TARP bailout, which he conspicuously supported. But he draws the line at a candidate who tells unpalatable truths and insists on applying the Golden Rule to all matters of public policy:

-- William N. Grigg

xxx

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Elmer Gantry Economics

Fleecing the Faithful on behalf of the Fed: Gary Bauer, prophet of the plunderbund.

A vast potential for infernal mischief can be found in some otherwise harmless adverbs. Let us examine the specific case of the seemingly inoffensive modifier "normally."

Incorrigible cynic that I am, I've long believed that any sentence that begins with the word "normally" is an exercise in deception, generally taking the form of special pleading. Whatever follows the word "normally" is something morally objectionable that I should summarily reject, but am being asked to countenance just this one time. Or so I'm being told to believe.

In a radio commentary for Focus on the Family broadcast yesterday before the congressional vote on the Economic Dictatorship Enabling Act, Gary Bauer quite generously vindicated my belief.

"Normally, we would not want to bail out people that made wrong decisions," Bauer began in his familiar tone of adenoidal sanctimony. In terms of making his case, Bauer lost me at "normally" -- but I listened anyway, as my enraged disgust took control of my jaw and put two very expensive dental crowns at risk.

"This crisis, if left unattended, could hurt people that made right decisions," Bauer simpered. "This [bailout] is not rewarding bad decisions. This is an attempt to prevent those bad decisions from hurting people that had no part in them."

Actually, those of us who had no part in those "bad decisions" are already being hurt. And we're in for much greater pain in the future. That much is out of our hands. The Uber-Bailout would do nothing to protect the relatively innocent and powerless. However, it would greatly palliate the deserved pain of those who are powerful and guilty. And it would end -- "temporarily," which in the lexicon of government power is a functional synonym for "forever" -- the ability of the common people to compel elected representatives to combat the schemes of the Bankster Elite.

The FED's counterfeiting press (or its digital analog) has been tirelessly churning wealth siphoned from our paychecks and savings into the butter it slathers on the bread of the corporate elite. This pilferage will continue whether or not Congress actually passes a bailout measure, as it probably will (most likely in a post-election lame duck session).



The Paulson Plan simply proposed to sever the one thin, fraying thread of accountability still connecting the economic elite to the people it is plundering. That thread is Congress's constitutional role in appropriating funds and overseeing the executive branch personnel who spend them.

Paulson, acting on behalf of the corporatist plunderbund, wanted to snip that thread decisively, albeit with a grave sense of agonized reluctance amid a unique financial crisis.

Bear in mind, of course, that this is something Paulson would not normally propose. Heh.

Bauer's moral reasoning, such as it is, dictates that while it's a sin to steal a hundred dollars to feed your family, stealing $700 billion to salve the bank accounts of wealthy criminals is an act of Christian statecraft. Both of those acts are sins and crimes, of course. And it's important to remember that the Christian Gospels --regarded as the truth, or merely an interesting collection of moral teachings -- make it clear that Jesus didn't define sin on a sliding scale favoring the rich and powerful.

The remedy for sin, in all circumstances, is repentance -- acknowledgement of the evil one has done, an attempt to make restitution, and an earnest effort fully to turn away from the sin. None of this would be accomplished by the Uber-Bailout whose purported necessity provided Gary Bauer with an opportunity to display his utter moral idiocy.

Joining Gary Bauer in offering a sermon on the supposed virtue of shaking down the poor to comfort the rich was Christian financial advisor Rob West.

"I really believe that we will see most of this money returned to the taxpayer," West began in the unctuous tone of a practiced con-man, "because as they buy up these loans at a discount the government will use their balance sheet to hold these loans and then sell them once market prices recover and stabilize.... There really is good evidence that the government can get most of this back." (Emphasis added.)



This is an exquisite example of a multi-layered lie -- a veritable Napoleon pastry of prevarication, in fact.

Let's begin with the italicized words "taxpayer" and "government." When West began this exercise in artful dishonesty, he assured the anxious listener that the money spent to provide a cushion for corrupt financial institutions would be returned to the taxpayers from whom it would be taken. By the end, we're told that the money would actually be "returned" to the government. Obviously, this not the same thing as returning it to those from whom the money would be stolen.

In the middle of this noxious confection we find a blend of two related and thoroughly toxic untruths. The first is that government, through coercive redistribution of wealth, can inject "value" into something innately worthless, such as a pile of irredeemably corrupt mortgage securities. The second is that the inflated prices that we saw during the housing bubble were normal, and that the ongoing decline is an aberration.

What West doesn't explain is this: If these feculent mortgage bonds are such a spectacular bargain, why aren't they being snapped up by contrarian investors?


"Rob West? Yeah, right -- the guy's a flippin' idiot!"

Behind West's assurances we can find the tacit understanding that the purpose of the Uber-Bailout is to continue the process of inflation, the ongoing theft of the value of what we earn and save through adulteration of the currency. Yet West -- whose advice is worth at least as much as, but no more than, a Zimbabwean dollar -- maintains that the Bailout would have no inflationary impact:

"Certainly the American family has already felt increased prices at the gas pump and the grocery store. And I don't think necessarily that we'll see a marked increase in that just based on this proposal alone[.]"

Here we see West taking refuge in another mischievous adverb -- "necessarily" -- while pretending that "this [$700 billion] proposal alone" would be the sole and final act of larceny.

Like so many other sycophants in saintly guise, West couples his solicitude for the powerful with stern advice for the weak. It may be a moral duty to relieve the super-rich of their self-inflicted burdens, but the poor and struggling are owed no similar succor.

"One of the messages for the American Christian is that we have to heed the counsel of scripture," cooed West. "Take the opportunity now to make sure you live within your means. Take the opportunity to start paying off your debt and shoring up your financial foundation. Make sure you have some long-term plans."

All of this is impeccably sound advice, but it is difficult to see how any of us can reinforce our financial foundation when the FED and its accomplices can fatally undermine it through inflation. West is demanding that people support a policy that will bring their conscientious efforts to nought, and nullify any long-term plans they make.

The ever-deepening financial crisis presents us with an opportunity and necessity to do something that is no fun at all: Repent.



Blessing the Mad Bomber: Gary Bauer (the gnomish figure in the center of the assembled Republican luminaries) puts in face time at a John McCain campaign event as a representative of Dr. James Dobson. McCain is a foul-tempered, abusive serial adulterer and unabashed warmonger, so naturally he received the support of Dr. Dobson, the nation's foremost Christian family counselor.

To repent, once again, is to turn completely away from one's present course. As individuals and as a nation we cannot continue to live on debt (or on "credit," as it's commonly called). There are already plentiful indications that American households are reining in their spending, foregoing luxuries of various kinds, and "hoarding cash." Banks are engaging in the same behavior. All of this is good and necessary -- and, admittedly, painful. In other words, it is a species of repentance, one the Big Bailout (and the subsequent interventions) would be intended to discourage, if not reverse.

Economic repentence, to be effective, can't be merely the private affair of the public. The government ruling us cannot continue the imperial foreign policy that has received the conspicuous benediction of Palace Prophets like James Dobson and Gary Bauer -- the latter being Dobson's representative in the neo-"conservative" warmaking network.

Why would a Christian political spokesman such as Gary Bauer miss such an obvious opportunity to preach repentance? Why would he choose to placate the powerful at the expense of the poor?

I suspect the answer may have something to do with Bauer's other affiliations.

Bauer was a founding member of the Project for a New American Century, the Beltway camarilla that was the womb in which the Iraq war gestated for several years. He is on the board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a group that wishes to organize the entire world around the nucleus of U.S.-Israeli military domination.

A similar ambition animates the Jerusalem Summit, an organization on whose international advisory board sits the same Gary Bauer. The Jerusalem Summit's chief objective is to create an Israel-centered, armed "League of Democracies." That proposal that has been taken up by John McCain, the deranged, senescent, foul-mouthed adulterer who won the endorsement of James Dobson -- the country's foremost self-appointed Christian family counselor -- by convincing a mother of five children, including a newborn infant with a serious handicap, to forsake home and hearth for the vice presidential hustings.

Like too many "Christian" Right leaders, Dobson and Bauer are devout servants of the War Machine, which cannot operate without the fiat money system inflicted on our nation in 1913. They profess to worship Christ, while serving Mars and Mammon. That may explain the double-mindedness displayed by Bauer and West in their homily in support of the post-Housing Bubble Heist.

Dum spiro, pugno!


http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2008/09/elmer-gantry-economics.html

Pics and toons 1/7/2 (7)

 

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Upcoming Assassination of Ron Paul

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYKbKTPZHBo

Wow, did this dude think this out seriously!

JO :((

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My latest exercise in eristics

http://open.salon.com/blog/bruce_majors/2012/01/07/new_poll_9_out_of_10_paid_government_agents_oppose_ron_paul

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rubio letter

http://htmlimg1.scribdassets.com/3l0kmd4ark1bvi7g/images/1-1565de6538.jpg

worth the read.

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Fwd: [LeftLibertarian2] Cato Essay #10 -- The Boston Massacre

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http://www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/excursions/boston-massacre

My Cato Essay #10 was posted a few days ago.

Ghs

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