Back to Basics

With the Justice Department at the forefront of major news stories that do not bode well for the department and it’s agencies, the House Judiciary Committee requested the nations top law enforcement official, Attorney General Eric Holder to appear before members of the committee on Wednesday afternoon.

According to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte,R-Va., Attorney General Holder will testify at an oversight hearing on the U.S. Department of Justice.

The hearing is expected to address a number of issues including the allegations that Justice Department officials secretly obtained two months worth of telephone records of reporters and editors working for The Associated Press.

In addition, there will be questions addressing the unwarranted targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, the recent terrorist bombings in Boston, and troubling allegations of “the politicization of the Justice Department under Attorney General Holder’s leadership,” according to Chairman Goodlatte.

“Oversight over the Department of Justice is a key function of the House Judiciary Committee and recent events illustrate the importance of this duty. Any abridgement of the First Amendment is very concerning, especially reports that the IRS targeted conservative groups for unwarranted scrutiny during an election year,” said Chairman Goodlatte.

Members of the Judiciary Committee are also expected to ask pointed questions about the Justice Department’s decision to obtain two months worth of telephone records of reporters and editors working for The Associated Press.

“In addition, after the horrific attacks in Boston on Patriots Day [April 15], we learned that in the years leading up the attacks several different federal agencies or departments received intelligence about the bombers but failed to connect the dots and share critical information with other agencies. The Obama Administration and Congress need to determine whether there are improvements that can be made going forward to facilitate interagency information sharing so that we can better detect and deter future home grown terrorist attacks. We must ensure our criminal laws and processes are up to the task of handling terrorism cases,” Goodlatte said.

Members of the House Judiciary Committee are also expected to question the Attorney General about the politicization of the Justice Department under his leadership. There are several examples in which conclusions reached by career attorneys after thorough investigation have been overruled by Administration appointees for political reasons, said GOP committee members.

The committee members were referring specifically to the Black Panther voter intimidation case and others that appeared highly suspicious to a number of lawmakers and journalists.

“The House Judiciary Committee has a responsibility to the American people to oversee the Justice Department to ensure that it is operating as efficiently and fairly as possible,” Goodlatte concluded.

Here I rebut the 3 major lies of our time:  Multiculturalism is good; islam is a peaceful “religion”; and the First Amendment gives islamists the “right” to build mosques, proselytize, and institute sharia here.

Let us repudiate the lies; and rebuild the shining city on the hill.

Others have already pointed out the absurdity that gay marriage is becoming a right in places where plastic bags and large sodas are becoming against the law. This sort of next wave civil rights step is only an expansion of freedom if you aren’t paying attention.

All the arguments over the differences between civil unions and marriage are largely meaningless. Once gay marriage is recognized, then marriage becomes nothing more than a civil union. The real casualty is the destruction of the word “marriage”, but the left is adept as destroying language and replacing meaningful words with meaningless words.

There was no word in Newspeak for freedom. We can look forward to an English language in which there is no word for marriage. And what does freedom mean anyway in a country where most things are banned, but we are constantly throwing holidays to celebrate how free we are?

But if marriage is no longer refers to a natural social institution, but now means a civil union recognized by the state, then why stop at two? Gay rights advocates insist that there is some magic difference between polygamy and gay marriage. There isn’t any difference except the number. And if we’re not going to be bound by any antiquated notion that marriage is an organic institution between man and woman, then why should we be bound by mere number?

Surely in our enlightened age and time, it can be possible for large groups of consenting adults to tie their confusing knots together in any number from 2 to 2,000.

True marriage equality would completely open up the concept. But it’s not actually equality that we’re talking about. It’s someone’s idea of the social good. And the social good is served by gay marriage, but not by polygamy.

The question is whose social good is it?

Equality and justice are words that the left uses to cloud the question of who advocates the causes and who benefits from them. Who decides that the cause of justice and equality is served by limiting marriage to two gay men, rather than four gay men, three bisexual men, two women and a giraffe?

The rhetoric of equality asserts a just cause while overlooking the social good. Rights are demanded. The demand is absolute and the logic for it remains left behind in a desk drawer on the wrong side of the table. Instead there are calls for empathy. “If you only knew a gay couple.” Hysterical condemnations. “I’m pretty sure you’re the devil”, one recent email to me began. And a whole lot of vague promises about the good things that will follow once we’re all paying for it.

We aren’t truly moving toward anarchy or some libertarian order, but a calculated form of repression in which shrill demands substitute for legal guidelines and those who scream the loudest get the most rights.

The new freedoms are largely random and chaotic. Donate enough money to the right people while helping out the left and a special addition to the marriage split-level house will be carved out for you. Why? Because there will be a lot of yelling. Naturally.

Perhaps the stupidest idea given an airing in a recent edition of The New York Times is Prof. Louis Michael Seidman’s opinion, “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution.”

According to his commentary, Prof. Seidman has “taught constitutional law for almost 40 years” and he was “ashamed” it took him that long to conclude that it was an outdated, “bizarre” document.

Apparently President Obama, who was a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, arrived at that conclusion more swiftly. His disregard for the Constitution recently got a slap down from the courts that ruled his recess appointments to the labor relations board were unconstitutional insofar as the Senate was not in recess.

I am not a constitutional scholar, but it should be self-evident that the oldest living constitution in the world has served to create and maintain the greatest republic in the world. Prof. Seidman asserts that Americans have “an obsession” with the Constitution and that is a very good thing indeed. Without it, we would likely have fallen prey to tyranny.

The framers of the Constitution did not spring it on their fellow citizens as a fait accompli, but rather as a new instrument of governance to replace the failed Articles of Confederation. A literate population was able to read the Federal Papers that argued for its various elements. It was submitted to the legislatures of the states for ratification.

We can thank those legislatures for the Bill of Rights because they insisted on amendments that would protect the right of free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and other elements that protect the individual against abuses of power that we take for granted, but which exist throughout the world. It can be argued that the Arab Spring that overthrew a number of Middle Eastern despots are a reflection of those rights as understood by citizens in nations that have never enjoyed them.

We tend to forget that many nations even today are ruled by monarchs and others exercising power that denies their citizens any definition of freedom.  The Founding Fathers, having fought a long war against the English monarch and his parliament, were particularly sensitive to that, creating an instrument of governance that deliberately created a system of checks and balances to ensure that no President or Congress could act in a manner contrary to the intent of the Constitution.

The Constitution intended to slow down the process of legislation to ensure it received a full debate and was not subject to the whims of the times.  In a January 2011 policy analysis published by the Cato Institute, Marcus E. Ethridge noted that “In the wake of the 2010 elections, President Obama declared that voters did not give a mandate to gridlock. His statement reflects over a century of Progressive hostility to the inefficient and slow system of government created by the American Framers,” adding that “A large and growing body of evidence makes it clear that the public interest is most secure when government institutions are inefficient decision makers.”

The most recent example of this was the 2,000-plus page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Many, if not most, Americans are unaware that the nation is composed of separate republics with their own constitutions. They are, of course, the individual states.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved respectively, or to the people.” – Tenth Amendment

By tying compliance with federal laws and regulation to receiving funds, the states have been coerced to accept programs that limit freedoms enumerated in the Constitution and the passage of Obamacare is but one example. Some twenty states have refused to set up the mandated insurance exchanges. Obamacare grants the government complete control over the provision of medical care that every American has formerly received from the free market health system that it destroyed. It gives the federal government control over our lives in terms of who lives or dies.

As noted on the website of the Tenth Amendment Center: “The Founding Fathers has good reason to pen the Tenth Amendment.”

“The issue of power – and especially the great potential for a power struggle between the federal and the state governments – was extremely important to the America’s founders. They deeply distrusted government power, and their goal was to prevent the growth of the type of government that the British has exercised over the colonies.”

“Adoption of the Constitution of 1787 was opposed by a number of well-known patriots including Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others. They passionately argued that the Constitution would eventually lead to a strong, centralized state power which would destroy the individual liberty of the People. Many in this movement were given the poorly-named tag ‘Anti-Federalists.’”

“The Tenth Amendment was added to the Constitution of 1787 largely because of the intellectual influence and personal persistence of the Anti-Federalists and their allies.”

Their worst fears are coming true as the nation heads into 2013. In just four years, the Obama administration, through its profligate borrowing and spending, has brought the nation to the brink of financial collapse and, as we have seen, the refusal of the President to negotiate anything than the current Band-Aid to avoid the “fiscal cliff” for another two months, has brought the nation to a point where the collapse of the U.S. dollar is not just imminent, but likely.

When that occurs the individual states may elect to secede in order to avoid having the federal government nationalize their National Guard units or take control of their state police to enforce whatever measures it might take to control the population. Individual state law enforcement authorities in cities and towns would need similar protection. Reportedly, massive amounts of funding have been directed to them to ensure their cooperation.

It would be a means to protect their citizens insofar as state constitutions grant the same rights as found in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. It would not surprise me to see Texas lead the way. Others would follow.

Gun and ammunition sales have been rising over the last few years, as have the number of concealed weapon permits being issued across the country. Please note I am not referring to the recent panic buying spree of semi-automatic weapons since the Sandy Hook school shooting. What the real reason behind the rise of weapon sales and increase in concealed carry permits? Who might be to blame, or if you a manufacturer or gun store owner, who could be thanked?  What if I told you it is national talk show host Michael Savage? Don’t believe me? Read on.

Contrary to the recent claims by Progressives, err, Socialists is that men who own such big and scary guns is to compensate for physical deficiencies below the waist, owning a semi-automatic weapon is due to the realization that the government will not be able to protect you when needed, or will simply not protect you at all. While everyone points to major visible natural disasters and man-made crises from hurricanes to riots, there is a much more subtle and arguably, much more serious threat that everyone seems to be missing. It is no better illustrated by the situation of well-known talk show host Michael Savage.

Regardless of what you think of him or his beliefs, everyone should be paying very close attention to his plight, especially if you have strong opinions and are willing to voice them. In May of 2009, Dr. Savage learned that he was banned from traveling to Great Britain “because his views might provoke violence.” He was on a list of 22 people, the names of 16 which were released by Great Britain Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. After three-and-a-half years, he is still banned for having legitimate opinions and voicing them. Our government has done absolutely nothing to intervene on his behalf or protect his right to freedom of speech. Wait, you might ask, what does this have to do with the push to ban certain weapons in the U.S? Plenty, if you understand the actual agenda of those behind the coming weapons ban, and not the official story line spewed ad nauseum by our elected officials and their lapdog media.

They are not JUST coming for your guns

To most Americans, including those who have been paying attention, it would seem that the core issue is the prohibition of certain types of weapons, ostensibly to avert another mass shooting. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it is much more. It is a magic act being performed right in front of you, and Michael Savage was the first talk show host to be tossed into the global cauldron of forced tolerance and involuntary censorship. He was added to a witch’s brew with real terrorists with evil intent, whose possession of roadside bombs far outnumber their opinions and whose ability to cause death and destruction exist by their actions, not by someone else’s reaction. Of those on the banned travel list stewing in the global “mind-think,” Dr Savage is the sole “tincture of opinion” in the brew, and there’s room for you in the cauldron. The recipe even demands it.

The so-called conservative talking head at MSNBC, Joe Scarborough, railed that the Connecticut shootings “must change everything.” Scarborough’s inference is that America needs stricter gun control laws. He said, “They [politicians] must . . . be forced to defend our children,” by enacting more gun control laws. Scarborough went on to rant, “I say good luck to the gun lobbyists, good luck to the Hollywood lawyer who tries to hide behind twisted readings of our Bill of Rights.”

Read more:

http://tinyurl.com/ckfmdkt

This is the same Joe Scarborough who was elected to Congress in 1994 from the First Congressional District of Florida. He ran as a staunch pro-Second Amendment conservative. He was elected to Congress by staunch Pro-Second Amendment conservatives. Now, Scarborough is joining the chorus of the anti-gun left by adding his voice for more gun control.

At one time, Joe and I were fairly close. I hosted a prominent radio talk show in Joe’s district at the time and did everything I could do to help him win that US House seat. At one time, Joe, and several members of his family, verbalized to me that had it not been for my support, he would not have won his congressional seat. At the time, I was proud to do it.

Joe was a different guy then. That was before he suddenly resigned his seat in Congress, before he landed a gig at MSNBC, and before he became a multimillionaire. Since then, I’ve watched Joe Scarborough morph into something different altogether. I no longer know Joe Scarborough.

I remember him telling me some 15 years or so ago that he had his sights set on the White House around the 2016 election. Is that what this is all about, Joe? Are you reading the tea leaves after the Connecticut shootings, and you think you’re going to ride an anti-gun wave to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? It ain’t gonna happen, Joe!

In the first place, the only anti-gun wave taking place in America is inside the Beltway and inside the establishment media, which is where it’s always been. In the second place, those of us who still believe in the Second Amendment are not the ones who have “twisted readings” of the Bill of Rights. Has anyone noticed the record gun sales that are taking place right now? Gun shops nationwide are literally wiped out of AR-15-style rifles, along with their accompanying magazines. Gun manufacturers are back-ordered into the indefinite future. Joe, do you now believe that all of these millions of honest, hard-working American citizens have a “twisted reading” of the Bill of Rights?

Joe, you used to quote the Second Amendment at your campaign rallies, remember? It reads, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Joe, you know as well as I do, that the right of people to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with hunting or target shooting. It has everything to do with “the security of a free state.” It has everything to do with the ability of free citizens within a free State to defend themselves against the potential oppression and tyranny of the federal government. That was the meaning and purpose of the Second Amendment.

First and foremost, I offer my most sincere condolences to the families and loved ones mourning the loss of so many small children as well as the staff members of Newton, Connecticut’s Sandy Hook School. The massacre of so many is, yet, another horrific act by, yet, another madman who slipped through the cracks of the liberalized US mental health system…a system which insanely allows even the violent mentally ill person to make the decisions on his or her own treatment — or no treatment at all.

Of course, the problem is not and never has been guns. In actual fact, virtually all of the recent mass slaughters under Obama’s and other’s watches have been committed in States with the strongest and most draconian gun laws.

In US States where laws permit the concealed carry of guns, these situations rarely — if ever recently — occur. Tragically, the State of Connecticut has — for all intents and purposes — already enacted gun control and just before this horrendous mass murder had tightened up its gun ownership laws. Instead, the true problem is actually isolating and treating those with already recognized and defined severe mental illness and, most especially, turning back to our once-spiritual nature and worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Gun control is meant and has been meant by every modern day dictator to control law-abiding citizens…not criminals. And this is precisely what Dictator-in-Chief Obama and his syndicate plan to do. We have warned you about Obama since before the 2008 elections. What we have warned has already come true in virtually all instances, with some of Obama’s anti-liberty/anti-USA actions now being put into place in his second of who-knows-how-many terms he will serve. Obama and a willing Congress have already stripped out the Fourth Amendment (See the NDAA bill) and severely limited the First Amendment (See HR 347 “Criminalizing Protests Bill” and with Obama’s order to arrest Mark Basseley Youssef for making an anti-Islam film the dictator has officially declared “blasphemy” of Islam as a crime). In other words, what is legally (under the US Constitution) required (three-fourths of US States) to ratify, Obama has done and is continuing to do on his own…unilaterally. Like it or not, folks, these actions are called “dictatorial powers”…and Obama is using them daily.

With regards to Obama’s anti-US economy (aka “anti-American”) policies, Wimp-of-the-House John Boehner has given Obama virtually everything he wants in order to ‘save’ the USA from going over the ‘fiscal cliff.’ With each attempt by Boehner to beg his master to accept it, Obama waves his hand, raises his chin a bit higher and — without even bothering to even read it — dismisses his supplicant Boehner with a bored “No.” Obama is determined to have the Republicans give him the unlimited powers over the economy he demands. He will not budge.

In other words, Obama is now demanding Boehner and the other Republicans recognize that he is the first Dictator of the USA and will do as he pleases from now on. He will have his way or he will let the country go over said cliff. Note: This whole battle is inane, as we went over this cliff quite some time ago.

To recap, this is it, folks.