Commentary by James Shott
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) gave a speech on the Senate floor last week where he said this about the disastrous implementation of the Affordable Care Act: "Despite all that good news, there’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue."
This abjectly stupid remark ignores the problems millions of the people Harry Reid serves as Majority Leader have encountered at the hands of this Democrat-created nightmare, some of them with life-threatening consequences.
Some say he really was alluding to claims made in ads paid for by the Koch brothers, about which he specifically commented shortly after that major gaffe, claiming the Kochs are trying to “buy America” through Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)(4) started by David Koch and Richard Fink.
He believes that the Koch brothers are the single greatest threat to liberty, “spending hundreds of millions of dollars telling Americans that Obamacare is bad for them.”
However, Koch Industries donated less than $3 million in the 2012 election cycle, earning 77th place on the Top Donor List of OpenSecrets.org. Americans for Prosperity is reported to have spent $40 million, but does not appear on the Top Donor List.
Top Donor organizations ahead of Koch Industries include: the National Education Association, #5 at $14.7 million; the United Auto Workers, #8 at $13.3 million; the American Federation of State/County/Municipal Employees, #10 at $11.4 million; the AFL-CIO, #14 at $9 million; and the Service Employees International Union, #18 at $6.6 million. Ten more labor unions beat Koch Industries in spending. Organized labor is “buying America” to a much larger extent than Koch Industries and Americans for Prosperity combined.
Harry Reid misleads us on political spending, and lied to us during the 2012 campaign about Mitt Romney having paid no taxes for 10 years. He epitomizes the sordid aspects of partisan politics, and simply cannot be believed.
*****
On May 5, 2010 Latino students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill, California turned out to celebrate their Mexican heritage on Cinco de Mayo.
When some American students showed up at school wearing American-flag shirts, school officials ordered the American students to turn their shirts inside-out or go home, to avoid a repeat of the unrest that had occurred during past observances of this date.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week upheld the action of school officials.
So, when students from Mexico attending American schools want to flaunt their Mexican-ness in the face of the American students by waving Mexican flags on a Mexican holiday, and some American students decide to show their patriotism by wearing American flag shirts, the school authorities believe that the American students are wrong, and the Mexican students are right, and a federal court agrees with them.
Disgusting!
Whacky, radical rulings like this one have earned the Court the nickname, “The 9th Circus.” The Mexican students should not be allowed to stir up sentiments by waving a foreign flag around to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. If they prefer Mexico to the U.S., perhaps they should just go back.
*****
Congressman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has produced a tax reform plan based upon three years of hearings and discussions with bi-partisan groups.
Hardly anyone who pays taxes will argue against reforming this overly complex system. The last round was in 1986, and at that time the tax code was more than 26,000 pages. Thirty years later, the tax system is a incoherent mess that negatively affects prosperity, job creation and investment, and is regulated by a tax code that has nearly tripled in size to roughly 75,000 pages.
Each year the tax code gets further complicated with more special interest loopholes, credits, and carve-outs.
Rep. Camp would make several changes to the code, like eliminating loopholes, reducing tax rates, whittling down the current seven tax brackets to three, and lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent, the highest in the industrialized world, to 25 percent.
In those 75,000 pages are goodies for numerous interests, and they will scream bloody murder if their special goody is on the chopping block. The Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore notes that we can “expect the White House to lambast this plan as a ‘tax cut for the rich,’ but the evidence from history shows that lower tax rates are usually associated with higher overall tax receipts and more taxes paid by the rich. In the 1980s after two rounds of Reagan tax rate reductions, income tax receipts doubled, and the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent, 5 percent, and 10 percent rose as the economy expanded.”
This plan simplifies the tax code by allowing millions of tax filers a larger standard deduction, meaning they don’t need to itemize and can use the EZ form. For those who do itemize, the mortgage and charity deductions remain.
While the Camp plan isn’t perfect, and produced quite a few knee-jerk criticisms, it has many advantages, and is certainly a good start toward finally transforming the current tax code into something that is sensible and easy to understand. Let’s hope Congress has the courage to follow through.
Cross-posted from Observations
Tampilkan postingan dengan label First amendment. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label First amendment. Tampilkan semua postingan
Federal government willfully breaches constitutional protections
Commentary by James Shott
On Aug. 16, 2012, Chesterfield County, Virginia police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Brandon Raub’s home, asking to speak with him about his Facebook posts. Mr. Raub, a decorated Marine who has served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, uses his Facebook page like millions of other Americans, to post items and comments, including his political opinions.
Without providing any explanation, levying any charges or reading him his rights, law enforcement officials handcuffed Mr. Raub and transported him to police headquarters, then to John Randolph Medical Center, where he was forcibly detained in a psychiatric ward for a week against his will.
For having the temerity to express his opinions Mr. Raub was kept in custody for an evaluation based on the opinion of one Michael Campbell, a psychotherapist hired by local law enforcement that had never interviewed Mr. Raub, but somehow felt he was capable of determining that the former Marine might be a danger. Psychiatrists at the mental institution, however, found nothing wrong with him.
According to The Rutherford Institute, which is representing the former Marine, in a hearing on Aug. 20 government officials pointed to the Facebook posts as the reason for incarceration. While Mr. Raub stated that the Facebook posts were being read out of context, a Special Justice ordered that he be held up to 30 more days for psychological evaluation and treatment. But Circuit Court Judge Allan Sharrett ordered his immediate release a short time later because the concerns raised by the officers were “so devoid of any factual allegations that it could not be reasonably expected to give rise to a case or controversy.”
When the government’s case came before U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Richmond, Va., he dismissed it.
Mr. Raub then sued the officers for taking him into custody without sufficient cause and for his subsequent mistreatment. A request by the offending officers to dismiss the case against them has been rejected.
“Brandon Raub’s case exposes the seedy underbelly of a governmental system that continues to target military veterans for expressing their discontent over America’s rapid transition to a police state,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.
“While such targeting of veterans and dissidents is problematic enough, for any government official to suggest that they shouldn’t be held accountable for violating a citizen’s rights on the grounds that they were unaware of the Constitution’s prohibitions makes a mockery of our so-called system of representative government. Thankfully, Judge Hudson has recognized this imbalance and ensured that Brandon Raub will get his day in court,” he said.
Judge Hudson has ordered limited discovery allowing Rutherford to demand what information federal and local authorities knew about Mr. Raub before he was detained for a mental evaluation.
The Institute called the decision a victory for free speech and the right to be free from wrongful arrest and presented facts indicating that the involuntary commitment violated Mr. Raub’s rights under the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
The complaint alleges that the attempt to label Mr. Raub as “mentally ill” and his subsequent involuntary commitment was a pretext designed to silence speech critical of the government.
A Richmond Times-Dispatch story noted: “Much of the information about Raub’s alleged mental condition was developed after his arrest and emergency mental assessment, but [Judge] Hudson notes in the opinion [allowing the suit against law enforcement officials] that “there is no indication that any defendant was aware of the specific contents of (emails and statements Raub was making) before Raub’s arrest."
Attorneys from The Rutherford Institute charge the seizure and detention were the result of a federal government program code-named “Operation Vigilant Eagle” that involves the systematic surveillance of military veterans who express views critical of the government, according to information on the Institute’s Web site.
Of “Operation Vigilant Eagle” the Wall Street Journal reports that “the Federal Bureau of Investigation [in 2009] launched a nationwide operation targeting white supremacists and ‘militia/sovereign-citizen extremist groups,’ including a focus on veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to memos sent from bureau headquarters to field offices,” and that “a similar warning was issued … by the Department of Homeland Security.”
So, the FBI and Homeland Security view military veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan like white supremacists and extremist groups, and then on flimsy or non-existent evidence, take them into custody and confine them for mental evaluation?
It will be interesting to see how the government and these agents defend their action at trial.
So, the FBI and Homeland Security view military veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan like white supremacists and extremist groups, and then on flimsy or non-existent evidence, take them into custody and confine them for mental evaluation?
It will be interesting to see how the government and these agents defend their action at trial.
Many, perhaps most Americans, are well served by state and local law enforcement that behave within the law and respect the privacy and freedom of those they serve until evidence is presented warranting arrest. However, those who initiated and carried out the persecution of Brandon Raub, including the psychotherapist, deserve to be strongly disciplined and perhaps fined and criminally charged for their illegal and unconstitutional behavior, and when the case is resolved, maybe they will be.
Such a resolution would likely get the attention federal officials who improperly unleash the force of government against innocent citizens, and restore respectful treatment of citizens by the government that exists to serve them.
Cross-posted from Observations
Cross-posted from Observations
Troops in Africa: Is this why we have a military?
In March, the United States plans to send elements of the Second Brigade, First Infantry Division, to Africa (under AFRICOM) to conduct over a hundred different missions in 34 nations, such as humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and training indigenous forces. (source: Washington Times) The Second Brigade is a heavy brigade equipped with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and self-propelled artillery, mind you, not a light infantry brigade or Special Forces unit. As a result of the deployment, their training on these systems in a wartime scenario will most likely suffer.
We are also a bankrupt nation, yet spending millions deploying portions of our military to areas that are not critical to our national security. Sounds to me like we may have found a portion of the national budget we can cut if our military has nothing better to do than hand out humanitarian assistance and wait for natural disasters in some far off land.
Our tax dollars need to instead be spent on our military defense, not on ambiguous blanket missions of doing everything except the defense of our nation. We need to get ourselves out of this recession/depression first before we should even consider doing a mission like that of the 2nd Brigade in Africa. The national debt is the biggest threat to our national security, not some non-existent disaster in Africa.
We must ask ourselves: Are the Armed Forces of the United States serving as the military force of the United Nations/World Government, or are they protecting America and its citizens?
As an organization, the US military is slowly being forced to reject its original foundation of the Christian faith and in its place accept humanism, as evidenced by the removal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy allowing for open homosexual behavior in the ranks. Even the mere presence of religion in military organizations is under attack from organizations such as the Military Religious Freedom Foundation who espouse a perverted interpretation of the First Amendment.
A key component of humanism is relativism, where there is no absolute truth. This has in part led to the development of a manual in Afghanistan that blames our own troops' insensitivity to the Islamic culture for causing the green on blue violence in that nation, rather than blaming the true source--Islamic jihad.
Furthermore, our military is confused as to who the enemy is. They are attacked by a jihadi at Fort Hood and it is called "workplace violence." Russian military forces are invited in our borders to participate in "counter-terrorism" exercises. We are aiding and abetting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, an organization that intends to re-establish a hostile Caliphate and destroy America. One of our Ambassadors is slain in North Africa while the military is forbidden from coming to his aid. We kill al Qaeda operatives in Yemen (for Saudi Arabia?), while supporting them and their allies in Syria and Libya.
Military leadership has been involved in suppressing the First Amendment rights of United States citizens when it comes to speech against Islam, and have publicly humiliated a fellow officer for teaching the threat that Islam presents. Then they "pivot to the Pacific," however China is not considered a threat but Iran in the Middle East remains so. Then some in our government talk about unilaterally reducing our nuclear arsenal to below 300 weapons while Russia is modernizing and exercising their nuclear triad.
Who is the enemy???
We need to get our military back on track and fast. They are all over the world "chasing Indians," disasters, and handing out humanitarian assistance. They need to be focused on the one thing they need to get right--defending our nation against existential threats. They need to be preparing for war, and they need a clear vision as to who are the enemies of America. With the imminent reduction in the military budget, this becomes all the more critical.
--Against All Enemies
[...]
Continue Reading (article continues)...
We are also a bankrupt nation, yet spending millions deploying portions of our military to areas that are not critical to our national security. Sounds to me like we may have found a portion of the national budget we can cut if our military has nothing better to do than hand out humanitarian assistance and wait for natural disasters in some far off land.
Our tax dollars need to instead be spent on our military defense, not on ambiguous blanket missions of doing everything except the defense of our nation. We need to get ourselves out of this recession/depression first before we should even consider doing a mission like that of the 2nd Brigade in Africa. The national debt is the biggest threat to our national security, not some non-existent disaster in Africa.
We must ask ourselves: Are the Armed Forces of the United States serving as the military force of the United Nations/World Government, or are they protecting America and its citizens?
As an organization, the US military is slowly being forced to reject its original foundation of the Christian faith and in its place accept humanism, as evidenced by the removal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy allowing for open homosexual behavior in the ranks. Even the mere presence of religion in military organizations is under attack from organizations such as the Military Religious Freedom Foundation who espouse a perverted interpretation of the First Amendment.
A key component of humanism is relativism, where there is no absolute truth. This has in part led to the development of a manual in Afghanistan that blames our own troops' insensitivity to the Islamic culture for causing the green on blue violence in that nation, rather than blaming the true source--Islamic jihad.
Furthermore, our military is confused as to who the enemy is. They are attacked by a jihadi at Fort Hood and it is called "workplace violence." Russian military forces are invited in our borders to participate in "counter-terrorism" exercises. We are aiding and abetting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East, an organization that intends to re-establish a hostile Caliphate and destroy America. One of our Ambassadors is slain in North Africa while the military is forbidden from coming to his aid. We kill al Qaeda operatives in Yemen (for Saudi Arabia?), while supporting them and their allies in Syria and Libya.
Military leadership has been involved in suppressing the First Amendment rights of United States citizens when it comes to speech against Islam, and have publicly humiliated a fellow officer for teaching the threat that Islam presents. Then they "pivot to the Pacific," however China is not considered a threat but Iran in the Middle East remains so. Then some in our government talk about unilaterally reducing our nuclear arsenal to below 300 weapons while Russia is modernizing and exercising their nuclear triad.
Who is the enemy???
We need to get our military back on track and fast. They are all over the world "chasing Indians," disasters, and handing out humanitarian assistance. They need to be focused on the one thing they need to get right--defending our nation against existential threats. They need to be preparing for war, and they need a clear vision as to who are the enemies of America. With the imminent reduction in the military budget, this becomes all the more critical.
--Against All Enemies
Army plans to shift troops to U.S. Africa Command
Aims for quick crisis response
By Kristina Wong - The Washington Times, Sunday, December 23, 2012
U.S. Africa Command, the military’s newest regional force, will have more troops available early next year as the Pentagon winds down from two ground wars over the past decade, Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Army chief of staff, told The Washington Times.
As part of Gen. Odierno’s Regionally Aligned Forces concept, about 1,200 soldiers will deploy to Africa as early as March in an effort to place troops strategically around the globe to respond quickly to sudden challenges in hot spots such as Libya and to develop ties with the people and officials in host countries.
“It’s about us moving towards a scalable, tailorable capability that helps them to shape the environment they’re working in, doing a variety of tasks from building partner capability to engagement, to multilateral training to bilateral training to actual deployment of forces, if necessary,” Gen. Odierno said in an interview.
Amid budget cuts and with President Obama’s new military strategy downplaying the chances of another major land war, the Army has sought to maintain its relevance among admirals and generals in the Pacific, the Middle East and North Africa — likely places for the next flash point. When terrorists attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, no U.S. troops were close enough to help.
Ready, responsive
Beginning in March, small teams of soldiers from the 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, based in Fort Riley, Kan., will conduct at least 108 missions in at least 34 countries in Africa through mid-2014.
The missions could include humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, training host-nation forces in marksmanship, first aid and other skills, and conducting military exercises. To prepare for these missions, soldiers are studying the regions and cultures of countries where they will deploy, and learning Arabic, Swahili, French and Portuguese.
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