FISHER: CONGRESS GUILTY OF DESERTION
Democrats? decision to not submit a budget an
historic slap in the face to every American
(Salisbury) ? Republican Rob Fisher, a small businessman and candidate
for Congress in Maryland?s First District, today released the
following statement on the historic failure of Congress to pass a
budget:
?Not passing a budget is desertion of duty, plain and simple. Ever
since this Congress and this President took office, they have been
shirking their Constitutional responsibilities to the American
taxpayers to blatantly pander to the special interests that got them
elected.
This Congress believes it is not accountable to the American people,
that the Treasury is a blank check to be used to reward Democrat
interest groups and balloon the deficit even higher while our economy
continues to founder and millions remain unemployed.
At a time when Americans are pleading with their elected
representatives to stand up and lead, Democrats in Congress continue
to turn a deaf ear to their constituents and refuse to do their job.
Frank Kratovil, Nancy Pelosi and the career politicians have had their
chance. It?s time we sent people to Washington who understand the
needs of those they represent and put their constituents first.?
No, really. I mean it. In a world of spineless, humorless political correctness, I suppose I could translate the title of my new love song and 2010 tour for the creatively challenged out there, and am certain it will make for some good reading. I like the line drawn in the sand. I don’t want a big tent. That would mean I would welcome idiots and losers. Until they stop being idiots and losers, my tent is not open to them. We have an excellence detector installed in the entranceway of my tent. Mediocrity will get you thrown out. Know it.
One of my lifelong passions, businesses and hobbies is total musical head removal. I play American-made Gibson guitars, the most powerful guitars on the planet, and when in my greasy Motown hands, they can blow your head clean off. James Brown taught me that the best musical performance should be ferocious. I genuflect at the Godfather of Soul’s altar nightly.
My band is the best in the world. The weak got trampled, the dead hurdled. It’s how we got to yet another amazing rocking tour in 2010. Plan B is for the not-so-excellent, or dead.
I graduated from Funk University, and I’ve got the rock ‘n’ roll thing perfected. However, I am not a schooled economist, but I am an economic pragmatist. I do not believe the average American, of which I am one, requires an Ivy League economics degree to understand basic economic truisms.
One of the most fundamental economic truisms is that raising taxes and increasing government spending historically leads to economic calamities, while cutting taxes and slashing government spending generally ignites an economic firestorm. Amazingly enough, it does not appear to me that anyone in the Obama administration understands this most basic economic reality. That’s scary, though predictable for central planning liberals like President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Having zero experience at operating a business of any kind, this is all too predictable.
Instead, the Obamacrats believe more government spending, higher taxes, more control over the private sector and more unsustainable mountains of debt is the right economic course to chart. This guitar-playing economic pragmatist believes their economic model is leading America down the path to economic disaster. Who doesn’t?
Continuing down this economic disastrous road will lead to even higher unemployment, a falling stock market and rising inflation. And that’s apparently where Mr. Obama is intent on taking the American economy. Welcome back, Misery Index.
The Bush tax cuts are set to expire at the end of this year, and there is no indication or hope that Mr. Obama will continue them. In fact, there is every indication he will let them expire, which will cause local, state and federal taxes to rise sharply next year.
Unless you believe sticking a sharp stick in your eye will improve your eyesight, no economic pragmatist can possibly believe that raising taxes during an already sluggish economy will improve the economy. Only bloodsuckers, dopers and socialist stooges believe higher taxes are good. They are nothing but economic parasites who live off the sweat and hard work of the producers. Mao Zedong would be proud.
If you believe we are in rough, choppy economic seas now, just wait a few more months. Things are going to get worse, possibly much worse under this rookie regime in the coming months.
The world is in the process of learning a painful economic lesson. That lesson is that liberals and their thirst for more government spending and control ultimately lead to economic collapse and despair. If the world – America included – does not make a very hard turn to fiscal responsibility and sanity, America will face the same fate as Greece in the not-too-distant future. If you do not believe America can suffer the same economic collapse as Greece, do a modicum of homework and study America’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product. The news is not good, not good at all.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke recently said that current spending levels are unsustainable. Welcome to the party, Ben. The Congressional Budget Office and many others have been saying this for quite some time. The problem is the Fedzillacrats in Washington are not listening.
Surprise, surprise.
What the Republican Party needs to do is offer Americans specific policies and plans to get us out of this Carteresque economic morass. So far, I haven’t heard a clear, resounding message.
Our economic condition is not all the fault of Mr. Obama and his Fedzilla cohorts. For too many years, the GOP embraced big government, too.
Fiscal conservatives like me have not forgotten Republicans’ wayward fiscal ways, and I am looking desperately for indications that the GOP has learned its fiscal conservative lessons.
So now, economic reality sets in. We either tighten our fiscal belt until it hurts, slash entitlement spending, cut taxes across the board and dramatically reduce government spending or America goes broke.
That’s not fear-mongering, folks. It is a reality born of economic pragmatism.
Come November, I’d highly recommend that America does like Uncle Ted: Trample the weak, hurdle the dead
Here is a scary thought to end the week … Well, not only scary, but promising – or is it disappointing at the same time.
Nearly half of Americans see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.
Folks, the role of government in the United States is to ensure that you, me, Belinda, all of us, can pursue our lives, make our own choices on how to live those lives, and do whatever it is that will make us happy .. so long as we don’t infringe upon the rights of others. For those who believe in an extreme view of limited government, it should exist purely to protect those rights and punish those who infringe upon them. That’s pretty much it. Sure .. there are roads and dams to be built, but protecting the framework of liberty should pretty much be the beginning and end of government. Now we have 48% of the people believing that government has actually become a threat to these rights, rather than a protector
My first reaction here was “Only 48%? What in the hell are the rest of these people doing?” Then I remembered that about one-half of the people in this country rely on government transfers of wealth for their existence. People who rely on government to seize the property of others and give it to them aren’t likely to see that government as a threat to their rights. To them government is a benefactor.
But for those of you who value freedom above security … clearly something has to be done. You can start in November. Voting in the elections in November will be so vitally important to the viability and future of this nation. The way you turn the tide in this country is to get other voters to polls who also believe in liberty and individual rights, outnumbering the deadbeats, the moochers, and the bottom-feeding parasites of our society.
Here is another “gee wiz” poll from Rasmussen … most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. Just 31% say promoting economic growth is more important. But a sizable number (17%) of adults aren’t sure which is more important.
Aren’t sure? See .. those are exactly the people I am talking about. If can’t decide whether an economy led by the government is more important than individual liberty, then you vote on Wednesday while the rest of us vote on Tuesday.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, left, and Sen. Richard Shelby.
By DAMIAN PALETTA
WASHINGTON—After more than 20 hours of continuous wrangling, congressional Democrats and White House officials reached agreement on the final shape of legislation that would transform financial regulation, avoiding last-minute defections among New York lawmakers that had threatened to upend the bill.
Reshaping the Rules of Wall Street
After 20 hours of wrangling, Congressional Democrats and White House officials agreed on the final shape of legislation to transform financial regulation and make dramatic changes to the industry.
After months of uncertainty about how the U.S. would craft new rules, the agreement offers the clearest picture since the financial crisis of how markets and the government will interact for decades to come. The common thread: large financial companies are facing a tougher leash.
The bill is expected to have enough support to become law. Both chambers plan to vote next week. The margin in the House and Senate will likely be close because most Republicans are expected to oppose the measure.
If the bill passes, President Barack Obama is expected to sign the package into law by July 4. Thursday’s agreement also gives the president leverage going into a weekend summit of world leaders in Canada, where he will prod other nations to rewrite their rules.
“This is about as important as it gets, because it deals with every single aspect of our lives,” said Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), a chief architect of the compromise.
In two important ways, the agreement is tougher on the banking industry than officials in the Treasury Department anticipated when they first drafted their version of the bill 12 months ago.
Lawmakers agreed to a provision known as the “Volcker” rule, named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, which prohibits banks from making risky bets with their own funds. To win support from Sen. Scott Brown (R., Mass.), Democrats agreed to allow financial companies to make limited investments in areas such as hedge funds and private-equity funds.
The move could require some big banks to spin off divisions, known as proprietary-trading desks, which make bets with the firms’ money.
The bill also includes a provision, authored by Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark), which would limit the ability of federally insured banks to trade derivatives. This provision almost derailed the bill following vehement objections from New York Democrats. Ms. Lincoln worked out a deal in the early hours of Friday morning that would allow banks to trade interest-rate swaps, certain credit derivatives and others—in other words the kind of standard safeguards a bank would take to hedge its own risk.
Banks, however, would have to set up separately capitalized affiliates to trade derivatives in areas lawmakers perceived as riskier, including metals, energy swaps, and agriculture commodities, among other things.
A panel of 43 lawmakers spent two weeks reconciling differences between a bill that passed the House in December and the Senate in May. They concluded their negotiations along party lines at a little after 5 a.m. ET in a Capitol Hill conference room marked by tension, levity and exhaustion. Senior administration officials, including Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Neal Wolin, arrived late in the afternoon to try and quell the feud between the New York delegation and Ms. Lincoln.
Major components of the bill, including the derivatives provisions, were negotiated in the hallway of the Dirksen Senate Office Building as the clock neared midnight. At one point, after hearing of an offer from Senate Democrats, Rep. Melissa Bean (D., Ill.) exclaimed: “Are you flipping kidding me? Are you flipping kidding me?”
Democrats hailed the agreement as a tool to prevent the kind of taxpayer-funded bailouts that stabilized the economy in 2008 but left divisive scars. Many Republicans said the bill could have unintended consequences, crimping financial markets and access to credit.
“My guess is there are three unintended consequences on every page of this bill,” Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) said of the nearly 2,000-page bill.
The deal comes as the banking industry is still struggling to regain its footing. Hundreds of banks have been dragged down by bad loans and investments. The violent restructuring of the U.S. banking sector two years ago has left just a few companies controlling a vast amount of the deposits, assets and financial plumbing of the country.
Government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain a multibillion dollar drain on the U.S. Treasury, and largely untouched by this proposal. And the banking sector in parts of Europe remains fragile.
The legislation would redraw how money flows through the U.S. economy, from the way people borrow money to the way banks structure complicated products like derivatives. It could touch every person who has a bank account or uses a credit card.
It would erect a new consumer-protection regulator within the Federal Reserve, give the government new powers to break up failing companies and assign a council of regulators to monitor risks to the financial system. It would also set up strict new rules on big banks, limiting their risk and increasing the costs.
The legislation gives the Securities and Exchange Commission new powers to regulate Wall Street and monitor hedge funds, increasing the agency’s access to funding. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission would also have new powers under the bill, which would try and force most derivatives to face more scrutiny from regulators and other market participants.
To pay for some of the new government programs, the bill would allow the government to charge fees to large banks and hedge funds to raise up to $19 billion spread over five years. The assessment is designed to eventually pay down a part of the national debt.
The broad contours had been set for weeks and mostly mirror a proposal the White House has pushed since last summer. But the last few days represented a mad dash of political maneuvering to iron out final details.
Negotiations went into Friday morning, with New York Democrats and White House officials meeting to address the bill’s potential impact on New York, which relies on the financial industry for employment and tax revenue.
To win broader support, Democrats softened the bill’s impact on community banks, auto dealers, and small payday lenders and check cashers.
From the beginning, lawmakers opted against a dramatic reshaping of the country’s financial architecture. Instead, they moved to create new layers of regulation to prevent companies from taking on too much risk.
For example, regulators decided not to order a sweeping consolidation of the regulatory agencies policing finance. They also decided not to bust up large financial companies, despite pressure from liberal groups.
But they did create a process for seizing and dismantling faltering companies, tools the government lacked in 2008 during the seemingly chaotic events surrounding Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and American International Group Inc.
Democrats are banking on stronger government regulators to constrain risk in the financial system and prevent a future banking crisis—or at least blunt its impact.
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America. (Photo courtesy of the Alliance)
(CNSNews.com) – Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is “not kosher” — meaning she is not fit to serve on the court — according to more than 850 Orthodox members of the Rabbinical Alliance of America. That’s the term the rabbis used about Kagan in a press release issued Thursday, saying “Elena Kagan is not kosher. She is not fit to sit on this Court — or any court.”
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the alliance, told CNSNews.com on Thursday that “a great deal has been made about the fact that she would be the second Jewish woman on the court, and we want to signal to people across the country that we take no pride in this.”
Levin said most people are happy when “one of their own” is nominated to such a high position. But, he added, “We feel that Elena Kagan turns traditional Judaism on its head – from a concept of a nation of priests and holy people, she is turning it into, ‘Let’s homosexualize every segment of society. And by the way, partial-birth babies have no right to be delivered.’”
In a statement issued Thursday, the rabbinical alliance called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to refuse to confirm Kagan to succeed the outgoing Justice John Paul Stevens.
“It is clear from Ms. Kagan’s record on issues such as abortion-on-demand, partial-birth-abortion, the radical homosexual and lesbian agenda, the “supremacy” of the anti-family panoply over religious liberties of biblical adherents, et. al., that she will function as a flame-throwing radical, hastening society’s already steep decline into Sodom and Gomorrah,” the rabbis said in the statement.
Levin told CNSNews.com that his fellow rabbis – and hundreds of thousands of Orthodox and traditional Jews – are puzzled at the president’s choice of Kagan.
“What exactly was Obama thinking, President Obama thinking, when he nominated Kagan? Because eventually, down the road, someone — or some group — is going to ‘take the hit’ for the crazy decisions that Kagan is bound to make. So we would have much preferred if President Obama had given this ‘distinction’ to another minority group, instead of singling out the Jews.”
Barring a rebuff from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Levin told CNSNews.com that the rabbis want someone in the Senate to launch a filibuster to stop Kagan’s nomination from coming to a vote.
‘We’re waiting for the more courageous, decent senators – whether it’s a (Sen.) Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) or a (Sen.) Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) or a (Sen.) Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) – we’re looking for them to stand up and filibuster this embarrassing endangerment of a nomination,” Levin said.
Confirmation hearings for Kagan begin Monday at the Senate Judiciary Committee. Neither Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) nor Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) — both members of the committee, known Kagan supporters and top Jewish members of the Senate — responded to calls for comment on this story.
When the open-borders lobby runs out of excuses for amnesty, their final resort is to “do it for the children.” Last year Nancy Pelosi told a crowd in San Francisco that “Our future is about our children” and “Taking parents from their children … that’s un-American.”
When the speaker of the House considers enforcing our immigration laws “un-American,” it becomes the constitutional duty of the states to stand against illegal immigration. This is why I introduced SB 1070 into the Arizona legislature, which has prompted a much needed national debate about immigration.
Sure enough, we’ve heard the same complaints about separating families. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D.-Ariz.) put together a congressional panel against SB 1070. He trotted out ten-year-old Catherine Figueroa, whose illegal alien parents had stolen identities of American citizens and were detained. She sobbed lines that no doubt were scripted by her handlers: “Please help us, children don’t know what to do without their parents.”
I truly sympathize with Catherine, but her law-breaking parents are the ones responsible for her situation. SB 1070 and all other immigration laws do not split up families. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer very sensibly pointed out that there is nothing stopping the children from going back with their parents to their nation of origin.
But the truth is that these people do not care about reuniting families. They simply use children like Catherine for cheap political gain.
She is not the first. A few years ago, the poster child and poster mother for breaking immigration law under the guise of not “separating families” was Elvira Arellano and her son Saul. Elvira, who had been deported in 1997, broke back into the country and obtained a fraudulent Social Security number. In 2002, she was arrested for Social Security fraud, but due to our lax immigration courts, she was released and wasn’t ordered to see an immigration judge until 2006.
With these facts, most Americans would see this as yet another example of how we fail to enforce our laws. But Elvira had an illegitimate son with an unknown father in 1999. Under a misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, Saul became a US Citizen.
Instead of going to court, Elvira holed herself up in Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago—which proclaimed itself a “sanctuary”—and stayed there for a year. Meanwhile, Saul travelled to Mexico where he spoke before the Mexican Congress to attack our laws. Eventually, Elvira snuck out and was detained and deported.
She then started a group called La Familia Latina Unida (United Latino Family) in Mexico. Instead of bringing her son with her, pro-illegal alien activists have given him legal guardianship and they parade him across the country away from his mother.
This would not be a problem if we ended our absurd practice of giving birthright citizenship to the children of illegal aliens.
The 14th Amendment states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” This clause was added specifically for the purpose of ensuring that the children of freed slaves would receive American citizenship.
The drafters of this amendment made it very clear that this was not intended for illegal aliens.
One of the amendment’s proponents, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, stated that the Citizenship Clause “will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, explained that: “The provision is, that ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.’ That means ‘subject to the complete jurisdiction thereof.’ … What do we mean by ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.”
The fact that illegal aliens come here in spite of our laws and fly Mexican flags in protest is a pretty sure sign that they do not owe sole allegiance to this country and should not be covered by the 14th Amendment for the purpose of citizenship.
In 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that the Citizenship Clause applied to children of legal immigrants awaiting U.S. citizenship. They have not, however, ruled that the 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship for everyone. In fact in the case Hamdi v. Rumsfield, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia referred to Taliban fighter Yaser Esam Hamdi—who was born here while his father was visiting on a temporary visa and then spent the rest of his life in Saudi Arabia—as a “presumed U.S. citizen,” acknowledging that the issue was open to debate.
The decision to grant citizenship to the children of illegal aliens is just another arbitrary government policy that has huge costs to the American people. Such children are eligible for dozens of welfare programs that strain state and federal budgets. It becomes incredibly difficult to deport the illegal alien parents of U.S. born children. Then when the children grow up they can sponsor their family members here illegally. This is why many refer to them as “anchor babies.”
The American people overwhelmingly oppose this. According a Rasmussen poll earlier this month, 58% of Americans do not believe the children of illegal aliens should receive U.S. citizenship while only 33% believe they should.
Neither Congress nor the Obama Administration is willing to act to prevent our Constitution from being perverted to reward illegal aliens. For the same reason I proposed SB 1070, I believe this the next step for Arizona to take in the fight against illegal immigration.
American citizenship is a privilege, not a right. Ending birthright citizenship does not punish children, but continuing the practice rewards lawbreakers.
State Senator Russell Pearce represents Arizona�s 18th Legislative District.
Congress is considering a censorship law to muzzle conservative groups, one that exempts pro-Democrat groups from its requirements, called the DISCLOSE Act. This blatant assault on the First Amendment is worse in some respects than McCain-Feingold, and should be a major focus during Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Modern campaign finance started with the 1976 Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo, where among other things the Court held that campaign contributions were protected by the First Amendment, but less protected than speech, and subject to disclosure requirements. Ever since then, campaign finance has been a complicated series of hits and misses.
The biggest miss was McConnell v. FEC in 2003, where the Court upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), better known as McCain-Feingold. By a 5-4 vote, the Court sustained BCRA’s provision that if Americans spoke through a public-interest group within 60 days of an election, those involved could spend five years in prison for committing a federal felony.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court rectified this travesty in Citizens United v. FEC, declaring, “Speech is an essential mechanism for democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people…. The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it.” The Court struck down BCRA’s “blackout periods,” restoring free speech to what it had been since 1791.
The reaction from the left was shameful, exemplified by Senator Chuck Schumer calling the decision “un-American.” But President Obama took the cake, condemning the Supreme Court to its face on national television in the State of the Union.
The justices sat motionless as the president humiliated them, mischaracterizing the Citizens United opinion, as they were surrounded in the House chamber by cheering (jeering?) congressional Democrats behaving like a bunch of thugs. This deplorable action was unprecedented in American history.
Democrats promised to get around the Citizens United ruling. (That’s a telling statement about the current Congress and administration, that they consider the Constitution something to “get around.”)
Their answer is the DISCLOSE Act, which is every bit as much an attempt to silence free speech as BCRA. Among other things, it requires that every group seeking to run political ads must show pictures and carry audio approvals from the organization’s head, the head of their largest contributor, and the names of the organization’s five top donors, whether or not they contributed to the message in question.
The end result of these onerous requirements is that of a 30-second TV or radio spot, perhaps 15 seconds will be consumed with these tedious, eye-glazing disclosures.
And by the way, labor unions are exempt from this law. Team Obama says, “We need disclosure!” Yet Team Obama’s storm troopers don’t need to disclose their activities, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
At least BCRA applied to unions. It was unconstitutional, but at least it went after both sides. DISCLOSE, by contrast, mostly criminalizes speech from conservative groups, while leaving liberals unfettered.
Fortunately, that may be its undoing. Because free speech is a fundamental right, an equal-protection challenge to it will be subject to what is called strict scrutiny. This law will not survive such an exacting standard in court.
Like BCRA, the DISCLOSE Act is unconstitutional. It runs afoul of both the First Amendment and the equal-protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment. It exploits an unguarded area of law, taking disclosure requirements to an unprecedented level to the point where they swallow up the speaker’s message, and intimidate donors. It violates the spirit of the Supreme Court’s recent decision, if not the letter. And Team Obama is trying to cram it into law to stem their losses in the upcoming election.
If DISCLOSE passes, our only hope is that the Supreme Court decides it before the 2012 election. (Unfortunately 2010 would be a lost cause unless a court orders a preliminary injunction.)
That being the case, Elena Kagan should have to answer a lot of questions. She took a radical view of government censorship when arguing the Citizens United case, arguing that government can outlaw political pamphlets. Senators (like voters) have every right to know how those arguments apply to this law.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., co-wrote the DISCLOSE Act which, according to its backers, will ensure transparency in campaign ad funding. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP file)
In March, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision struck down campaign finance limits on political expression by individuals working through corporations and unions as a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. A cry ensued among liberal Democrats predicting doom if they and their special interest allies were required to follow the Constitution. Big Labor’s bosses promised to spend millions to protect the Democratic majority if it would speedily pass legislation to circumvent the decision (and thus the Constitution), but restore limits on their corporate foes.
The resulting DISCLOSE Act, according to its backers, will ensure transparency in campaign ad funding. Thursday, the House of Representatives approved the bill 219-206, with 36 Democrats and 170 Republicans in opposition to the measure, which was written by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year, and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who led the Senate Democrats’ campaign panel in 2008.
The bill is full of draconian restrictions on individual political speech expressed via corporations, but gives privileged status to the Democrats’ union masters. A provision pushed by Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Bob Brady, for example, allows unions to transfer unlimited funds among affiliated groups to pay for political ads with no disclosure whatever. That makes campaign funding more transparent?
Then there’s the ban on advocacy for or against a candidate by any company that received Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. That silences General Motors’ white-collar workers, but not the United Auto Workers union, which, oh by the way, got, among other things, $6.5 billion in preferred GM stock, paying a government-guaranteed 9 percent cash dividend. Could the fact the UAW gave more than $2 million to Democrats in 2008 explain why Democratic leaders pushed a proposal that so blatantly favors the union?
Similarly, DISCLOSE curbs political speech for employees of companies receiving more than $7 million in government contracts. Public sector unions that spend millions of recycled tax dollars electing Democrats have no such restrictions. By thus outlawing business funding for or against candidates, DISCLOSE will encourage more funding for corporate lobbyists and marketers targeting government contracts and earmarks.
As usual, DISCLOSE was rammed through the House after being introduced with only a few hours’ notice and too little debate allowed. Because Democrats have abandoned doing a federal budget for the year, couldn’t they find a little more time to allow Congress and the people it is supposed to represent to read and discuss this measure at greater length? Next we will see if Senate Democrats are as determined to throw out the First Amendment as were most of their House colleagues.
It appears that the Democrats in Congress are having a complete breakdown. I’ don’t know the appropriate medical terms. but in layman’s terms, they’ve lost their minds!
Cap-and-Trade, a bill which claims to respond to the questionable climate change crisis or the oil spill in the Gulf (depending on what audience Henry Waxman is addressing) and a Value-Added-Tax (VAT) are both being discussed as part of the Democrat post-election strategic goals during a lame duck session of Congress.
We all know that there are suicides every day. It’s sad, but inevitable, regardless of how many suicide “hotlines” are in place. The truly dangerous potential suicide is the one who doesn’t plan to go alone. Suicide bombers in the Middle East are the most commonly seen exponent of this.
Unfortunately, there don’t appear to be any “hotlines” for a political party that wants to commit group suicide.
Let’s just think this through, which the Democrats obviously haven’t. Both the Cap-and-Trade bill, and a VAT imposition, would raise taxes on everyone in the country. Allow me to say that again – they would raise taxes on everyone in the country. Rich, poor and middle class, union members, entrepreneurs and welfare recipients, young and old, white, black, and Hispanic, gay and straight, Protestants, Catholics, Jews, atheists, Evangelicals, Muslims, and Buddhists, those here legally and illegally. No one would be able to escape paying these taxes.
There are no obvious supporters who might benefit from governmental largess that might be funded by these taxes. We’re in too much debt to generate any support for yet another huge government giveaway program. So these new taxes (or fees as they might try to label them) would simply be punitive. Democrats would be punishing the entire country for not buying into their grand plans to transform America as we know it.
These new taxes are not the type that can be withheld from a paycheck, or tacked discreetly on everyone’s phone bill. They are the type that will be paid every day. They will be paid at the gas pump. They will be paid at the checkout line in every store in the country. They will be paid every single day.
So every day, voters will be reminded of the Democrat suicide bombers who did, and continue to do, this damage. Every single day. Every day will bring another reminder. Every time a purchase is made, and our citizens get a little less change back, voters will have more salt rubbed into the wound.
Here is where the Democrats’ delusions come to full flower. After passing Cap-and-Trade and a VAT tax, and rubbing it in the faces of the electorate, daily, for two years, the Democrats assume that they will return to power in 2012, and Obama will be re-elected by overwhelming margins.
After running up trillions in deficit spending, forcing through an unpopular medical coverage bill by relying on parliamentary sleight-of-hand, appointing countless czars who want to control everything from internet access to medical treatment, and appointing a “wise Latina” to the Supreme Court, the Democrats plan to top off this dizzying legislative confection with Cap-and-Trade and a VAT.
The last gasp of this Congress, the so-called climate bill and the VAT will do more economic damage to this country than anything since the Great Depression. Yet, the Democrats will campaign in 2012 that the country needs to return them to power because we need their firm hand on the tiller of ship of state.
It seems far more likely that in 2012, even more Democratic members of the House and Senate will find themselves working for progressive think tanks, and they will find themselves led by the 21st century’s first one term president. The Democrats, post-2012, will find themselves ever more marginalized, until a Democratic candidate for president will come to be viewed in the same light as Norman Thomas – a footnote in history books or Wikipedia, and not much else.
To the contemporary conservative, progressive ideology is often murky and incomprehensible. It is very difficult for some on the right to understand the apparently illogical and unrealistic machinations of the radical leftist mindset. Their political objectives, if achieved, inevitably lead to further demands for concessions toward an ever-greater ideological purity.
Something even darker and more malevolent is happening, however. The various radical leftist factions and special interest groups are rapidly coalescing into a global movement.
A comprehensive and enlightening treatise on this topic was recently published in Orbis, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s journal of world affairs, written by University of Buffalo professor Ernest Sternberg. The article is titled, “Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For”. It will open your eyes and scare you to death.
In Steinberg’s analysis, from the historical ashes of failed fascist and communist regimes a new totalitarian ideology is emerging:
Though a mouthful, world purificationism would do well in expressing what the movement wants. It wants to achieve a grand historical vision: the anticipated defeat of imperial capitalist power in favor of a global network of beneficent culture-communities, which will empower themselves through grassroots participatory democracy, and maintain consistency across movements through the rectifying power of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), thereby bringing into being a new era of global social justice and sustainable development, in which the diverse communities can harmoniously share an earth that has been saved from destruction and remade pristine.
The sworn enemy of the purifiers is simply referred to as “Empire” (preceding it with “the Evil” is not necessary, apparently). Empire’s evil manifestations are capitalism and Zionism. The geographical focus of purificationism’s hatred is the United States and Israel.
Steinberg compares the new movement to previous anti-capitalist and anti-Zionist movements:
Unmentionable for decades in progressive scholarly company, the similarity between totalitarianisms has once again received academic attention, in part because of interest in comparing Soviet, Maoist, Khmer, and Nazi genocides. The new work has renewed appreciation that fascism and communism did not just have similar regimes. They also shared parallel ideologies. […]
Convinced that they have this unique mission, they must motivate hatred of opponents. They carry out or at least legitimize ruthless violence. And they assert the privilege to shape life’s purpose and meaning for millions.
The purificationist dream is a world without borders, governed by a global network of NGO’s. Almost all current activist organizations containing the words “green”, “justice”, “peace”, or “solidarity” would find a position in the ruling structure. These NGO’s would gravitate toward forming a totalitarian regime since, as Steinberg points out, they are “unaccountable to an electorate and escape political checks and balances…”
Even more disturbing is the increasing coalition between progressivism and radical Islam. Steinberg’s piece includes a quote from George Galloway, a progressive British parliamentarian, when asked if Muslims and progressives could unite in a common cause:
Not only do I think it’s possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies… They have the same interest in opposing savage capitalist globalization which is intent upon homogenizing the entire world turning us basically into factory chickens which can be forced fed the American diet of everything from food to Coca-Cola to movies and TV culture… So on the very grave
big issues of the day — issues of war, occupation, justice, opposition to globalization — the Muslims and the progressives are on the same side.
To me, this sounds like a coalition between factory chickens and poultry butchers. But it exemplifies the unreality in the strategic thinking of progressives. They visualize a world of communities living in perfect harmony with nature and each other, with minimal industrial activity, no profit motive, and no greed. Everyone is tolerant of others’ beliefs (unless they are capitalists or conservatives). How they intend to deal with the violent intolerance of Islam toward other religions and cultures is not considered.
It is imperative to thoroughly understand this evolving ideological movement in order to effectively resist it. The socialist ideology is so pervasive that it will probably never be completely defeated. Time after time, it has been seemingly destroyed and discredited, only to rise again in a new incarnation. Its adherents play by no rules (other than Alinsky’s), and their ends justify any means required.
One issue that Steinberg does not address is the pervasive, unrelenting propaganda machine that constitutes the progressive mainstream media. As long as free-thinking individuals are misled and kept ignorant of the purificationist agenda, the infiltration of our institutions and the destruction of our freedoms and values will continue.
We who believe in capitalism, the US Constitution, and individual liberty must do everything possible to educate others and disrupt this movement. Otherwise, the sweet dreams of the purifiers will inevitably result in an unending totalitarian nightmare of global proportions.
U.S. Constitutional Free Press 