We have too many high-sounding words,
and too few actions that correspond with them.
Abigail Adams
Liberty Thought of the Day
More Unconstitutional Insanity From the People's Republic of California
What Fifth Amendment? This is the "progressive"equivalent of a bank heist.
Obama, Read My Lips: Back Off Intervention in Syria
Undeclared War is an Impeachable Offense
US Military Personnel: Obeying an Unlawful Order Can Be Prosecuted
The last thing I wrote no doubt would be attacked: how dare I question the orders of the Commander-in-Chief; failure to comply with the orders of the President can subject one to court martial. The latter is usually, but not always true:
The first recorded case of a United States Military officer using the "I was only following orders" defense dates back to 1799. During the War with France, Congress passed a law making it permissible to seize ships bound to any French Port. However, when President John Adams wrote the order to authorize the U.S. Navy to do so, he wrote that Navy ships were authorized to seize any vessel bound for a French port, or traveling from a French port. Pursuant to the President's instructions, a U.S. Navy captain seized a Danish Ship (the Flying Fish), which was en route from a French Port. The owners of the ship sued the Navy captain in U.S. maritime court for trespass. They won, and the United States Supreme Court upheld the decision. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Navy commanders "act at their own peril" when obeying presidential orders when such orders are illegal.In other words, Adams did not have authority to stop ships leaving from a port. Declaration of war is a Congressional responsibility, and certainly a premeditated strike against Syria, which is not a threat to the US, cannot be defended as a defensive tactic. However well-intended Obama is on dubious evidence of the source of any purported use of chemical weapons, there is no Constitutional loophole for a Nobel Peace Prize President to unilaterally initiate hostilities on "humanitarian" grounds. Great Britain, Obama's partner in the mission, opted out tonight after losing a relevant vote in Parliament. The American people do not support it; less than 10% favor it. Congress has no intent of approving such an unpopular intervention.
Another Time Piece Annoys Me
I've spent so much time praising George Mason University economists, I found myself shaking my head at colleague President historian Richard Norton Smith's essay in Time's recent "I Have a Dream" golden anniversary issue. I looked up his Wikipedia biography and Smith is not an obvious left-wing nutjob; he was a speechwriter for two GOP politicians and has been involved with multiple GOP Presidential libraries. But a few excerpts jumped out at me:
These days the loyal opposition [is] too busy jamming the operations of government itself. Meanwhile Obama,our putative instructor-in-chief, is ensnared in a political culture that defines success not as forging consensus but in preventing it... How does a President persuade congregation members who have tuned him out, disputing his legitimacy and reserving their attention for rivals who reinforce their existing beliefs and prejudices? That is precisely what makes the President's remarks following the Trayvon Martin verdict so compelling...Obama's parking-lot epiphany is as chillingly authentic as it is impossible to dismiss.Do you know how many times I've done something others deemed impossible? (It is something I relish doing; familiar readers know that I started out my IT career as an APL programmer/analyst. I taught myself the concise, cryptic language in almost no time, enough to attract a job offer a year later to the leading APL timesharing branch in Houston. One day a colleague asked for a little utility, which I created off the top of my head in less than 5 minutes. Co-workers looked over my shoulder and claimed that it would never work--and I hit my return key and proved them wrong. People conflate their limitations with mine all the time. On a side note, my utility costed out at about 80 cents; my branch manager tried all day to design a cheaper solution and never got closer than $1.20. Sad...)
Yes, I dismiss Obama's ill-focused discussion of racial paranoia, which was better suited for Oprah Winfrey's couch than in front of news journalists. Everything he said is something I've heard hundreds of times before. He's written books and given speeches about his black experience. This was not a case where Trayvon Martin was a defendant in a trial, and we had a President speaking, on multiple occasions, on a state, not federal trial, which put at risk the defendant's constitutional rights. Maybe Mr. Smith is still working off his white guilt. If a female neighbor locks her door behind her as I pass in the hall, I don't take it personally. If a woman edges away from me in an elevator, I might change my deodorant spray the next time I shower. We all experience life's little problems and indignities. I always thought people whom went around thinking their share is more are rather presumptuous. How does that saying go? "You don't know me." Is this supposed to explain why Martin responded as he did in being followed by Zimmerman? But Martin wasn't being prosecuted; Zimmerman was. Smith seems to see Obama as some self-appointed Moral Conscience of the nation! What nonsense! This is the same guy whom stonewalled a mandate to give a baby born alive in an abortion procedure medical assistance and a Nobel Peace Prize winner whom has bombed other countries with which we are not at war--he has no standing to lecture other people about their behavior.
I think Smith has a vested interest in Obama because he predicted Obama's Presidency after his keynote address at the 2004 National Convention. Who could have predicted that, given Clinton's national introduction at the 1988 Convention as a speaker and the fact most Democrat politicians are about as charismatic as day-old wheat toast? But Smith's parroting partisan talking points?
I thoroughly reject the idea that Republicans are principled obstructionist; it ignores the fact that the GOP has principled objections to an activist "progressive" agenda, and Obama during the 111st Congress played hardball politics, refusing to compromise because he had enough votes to push partisan bills through Congress. When you marginalize and routinely scapegoat the opposition, you are setting the tone, and you have to acknowledge your own share of blame.
But with a nation already nearly $17T in debt, larger than the nation's economy, and maybe another $80T in unfunded liabilities, we are basically stealing from future generations. Obama's agenda is counterproductive from a standpoint of competent governance and a robust economy. The opposition only controls one chamber of Congress; conflict is inevitable. We have a President whom refuses to compromise or to enforce laws that he doesn't agree with and whom works around the Congress with executive orders. Obama even refused to back the findings of his own bipartisan deficit reduction commission, including the support of every GOP senator on the commission.
A Boy Genius Almost Got Buried in Public School Special Ed
The Crony Unionist-in-Chief
"I Saved the Auto Unions" Obama may not think that he's corrupt, but if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, ... A picture of the Legal-Plunderer-in-Chief with the Legally-Protected-Plunderer-in-Chief....
But how well spent was all the union "investment" in The One meant in his home state? This is from Paul Kersey of the Illinois Policy Institute:
Over the last year, 760 workers represented by the United Auto Workers were laid off at one Caterpillar Inc. facility in Peoria. Hostess Inc., the iconic snack maker, was forced to shut its bakeries, including one in Schiller Park that employed 1,400 Illinoisans represented by several unions, among them the Bakers, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. (That plant was reopened when new owners took over Hostess, but most of the workforce was replaced — those jobs are now non-union.) And when Chicago Public Schools started the new school year, they did so with about 3,000 fewer Chicago Teachers Union members.
While rank-and-file workers are facing pink slips, union bosses are raking in big salaries.
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Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel and Townhall |
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, "Ain't Nothing Like The real thing"
Molesters of Small Children Deserve No Mercy
HT Judge Andrew Napolitano.
