Posted by Linda Fletcher on April 19, 2010 at 11:11pm
View Linda Fletcher's blog
http://www.resistnet.com/profiles/blogs/a-letter-from-a-procter-amp
This was forwarded to me...just passing it on. Pretty
interesting....
http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/youscareme.asp
Snopes says this is true as do others on the internet.
Subject: A LETTER FROM A PROCTER AND GAMBLE EXECUTIVE TO THE PRESIDENT
THE LAST SENTENCE IS THE MOST CHILLING
Lou Pritchett is one of corporate America 's true living legends - an
acclaimed author, dynamic teacher and one of the world's highest rated
speakers. Successful corporate executives everywhere recognize him as
the foremost leader in change management.. Lou changed the way America
does business by creating an audacious concept that came to be known as
"partnering." Pritchett rose from soap salesman to Vice-President, Sales
and Customer Development for Procter and Gamble and over the course of
36 years, made corporate history.
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA
Dear President Obama:
You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any
of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy
League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible
signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth
growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't
understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming
others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself
with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly
denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail..
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America'
crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style
country where the government sector dominates instead of the private
sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a
government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing
on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that
lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the
world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against
certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging
you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider
opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent
and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you
do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaugh's,
Hannitys, O'Reillys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of
view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably
not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.
Lou Pritchett
This letter was sent to the NY Times but they never acknowledged it.
Big surprise. Since it hit the internet, however, it has had over
500,000 hits. Keep it going. All that is necessary for evil to succeed
is that good men do nothing.. It's happening right now.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Appeals panel considers whether Obama is even American
Posted by Caleb on June 30, 2010
http://www.westernjournalism.com/appeals-panel-considers-whether-obama-is-even-american/
Three judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are beginning to review a case that alleges Barack Obama is not eligible to be president – in fact, he may not even be American.
Obama's citizenship is being challenged in court
The federal court case was brought by attorney Mario Apuzzo on behalf of plaintiffs Charles Kerchner and others, and had been dismissed at the district court level.
Arguments earlier had been scheduled for June 29 in the dispute, but a court order recently cancelled the hearing and instead announced the case would be decided based on the merits of the legal briefs submitted by attorneys.
A document from court clerk Marcia Waldron said the case will be decided by Judge Dolores Sloviter, who was appointed by Jimmy Carter; Maryanne Trump Barry, who was appointed by Bill Clinton; and Thomas Hardiman, who was appointed by George W. Bush.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/appeals-panel-considers-whether-obama-is-even-american/
Three judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are beginning to review a case that alleges Barack Obama is not eligible to be president – in fact, he may not even be American.
Obama's citizenship is being challenged in court
The federal court case was brought by attorney Mario Apuzzo on behalf of plaintiffs Charles Kerchner and others, and had been dismissed at the district court level.
Arguments earlier had been scheduled for June 29 in the dispute, but a court order recently cancelled the hearing and instead announced the case would be decided based on the merits of the legal briefs submitted by attorneys.
A document from court clerk Marcia Waldron said the case will be decided by Judge Dolores Sloviter, who was appointed by Jimmy Carter; Maryanne Trump Barry, who was appointed by Bill Clinton; and Thomas Hardiman, who was appointed by George W. Bush.
Obama's Supreme Court Nominee, Elena Kagan (the Early Years)
Americans are sitting back on their rear end and letting it happen without a battle.
Unfortunately America’s majority Democrat Party US Senate with the assistance of a few Republicans on Capitol Hill are just before confirming a radical left-wing nominee who has no actual Judicial experience as a anti-military, pro-choice, anti-Defense of Marriage, pro-government healthcare, pro-illegal immigration, etc. Along the way, we will find Elena Kagan to be in support all the social values that you and I believe in as Judeo-Christian values. I believe we will find Elena Kagan to be a mirror-image of another radical left-wing Barack Obama.
Many in the main-stream media and even the more Conservatives are merely saying Elena Kagan confirmation will not change SCOTUS as her confirmation would replace John Paul Stevens. Each confirmation to the nine (9) member SCOTUS nominees should stand on their own, not as any comparative replacement. Nominations and confirmations to SCOTUS are lifetime appointments.
Americans must “Take America Back”. God Bless America.
Oscar Y. Harward
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/
President Barack Obama's nomination to the U.S. Supreme court, Elena Kagan, has been sold to the public as a "moderate" - yes, a little liberal leaning, but moderate none the less.
In this first of a series of posts, I look at Elena Kagan's patterns of association.
If Elena Kagan is a moderate, why then has she long associated with people connected to three interrelated organizations - the Communist Party USA, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee/ Democratic Socialists of America and the far left Washington D.C. think tank, Institute for Policy Studies?
Raised on New Yorks' Upper West Side, Elena Kagan's parents were both politically active in a place and era where politics was dominated by the Democratic, Socialist and Communist parties.
Elena's mother Gloria Kagan campaigned to elect far left Democratic Congressman, William Fitts Ryan. Her older brother Marc Kagan was active in the socialist influenced New Directions movement in the Transport Workers Union. When one of its leaders, Roger Toussaint, was elected union president in 2000, Mr. Kagan became his chief of staff, until a falling out occurred in 2003.
Marc Kagan's former comrade and boss, Roger Toussaint is prominent in the communist initiated Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, which now led by D.S.A. member William Lucy. He also serves in the leadership of the Center for the Study of Working Class Life at Stony Brook University, alongside Ray Markey from the Communist Party offshoot Committees of Correspondence and D.S.A. leaders Gerry Hudson, Mark Levinson, Stanley Aronowitz and Frances Fox Piven, co-originator of the infamous Cloward - Piven Strategy.
Elena Kagan would later dedicate her Princeton history thesis on socialism in New York City to her activist brother.
I would like to thank my brother Marc whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism and in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.
Kagan first became interested in politics in high school and worked as a legislative intern for Rep. Ted Weiss, a Democrat from New York, during the summer of 1978, and as deputy press secretary for Rep. Liz Holtzman in the summer after her junior year.
The late Ted Weiss was very far to the left. In 1978 Congressmen Ted Weiss, John Burton, Ron Dellums (D.S.A. member), John Conyers (D.S.A. supporter) , Don Edwards, Charles Rangel and others, attended a meeting organized for the Soviet front World Peace Council on Capitol Hill.
W.P.C. delegation members included President Romesh Chandra (Communist Party of India), KGB Colonel Radomir Bogdanov and Oleg Kharkhardin of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union International Department.
In 1981 another World Peace Council delegation led by Romesh Chandra toured the U.S. to publicize the "nuclear freeze" then being promoted by Leonid Brezhnev.
This group met with several far left Congressmen at the Capitol, including Weiss, John Conyers, George Crockett, Ron Dellums, Don Edwards and Mervyn Dymally.
During one of the meetings in these Congressmen's offices an official of the Communist Party USA reportedly was present and made a speech recommending that the "peace movement" unite in supporting the cause of several terrorist groups including the PLO and the communist guerillas in EI Salvador
Weiss was also close to the Institute for Policy Studies. In 1983 I.P.S. celebrated its 20th anniversary with an April 5, reception at the National Building Museum attended by approximately 1,000 I.P.S. staffers and former staff.
The Congressional I.P.S. committee members included Ted Weiss, Philip Burton , George Crockett, Ron Dellums , Tom Harkin and Leon Panetta, later appointed by President Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
Liz Holtzman is also way left of center. In the late 1980s and early 1980's the Marxist based Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, or D.S.O.C. (later to become Democratic Socialists of America, or D.S.A.) was highly influential inside the New York Democratic Party and city government - even Mayor David Dinkins was a member.
On August 6 1993, a rally to commemorate Hiroshima Day was held in Dag Hammarskjold Park, New York. The rally was designed "to kickoff a national campaign to collect a million signatures supporting a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, commend president Clinton for extending the nuclear testing moratorium, urge renewal of the Non Proliferation Treaty, urge swift and complete nuclear disarmament."
The event was sponsored by the radical Metro New York Peace Action Council.
Speakers included Liz Holtzman, then NYC Comptroller, leftist Congressmen Charles Rangel and Edolphus Towns, Leslie Cagan of Committees of Correspondence and the Cuba Information Project, Congressmen Major Owens (D.S.A. member) and Jerry Nadler (D.S.O.C. member) NYC City Councilor Ruth Messinger (D.S.O.C./ D.S.A. member) and David McReynolds, a leader of the Socialist Party USA and also a D.S.A. member.
Nearly 5 years later, in March 1998, McReynolds delivered a eulogy at a memorial service for Chicago D.S.A. activist Saul Mendelson. Fellow D.S.A. comrades Carl Marx Shier and Deborah Meier also spoke, as did then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama.
At Princeton Elena Kagan’s political beliefs emerged in an opinion piece she wrote for the Daily Princetonian a few weeks after Ronald Reagan's victorious 1980 election night. Kagan described her disappointment at Liz Holtzman’s Congressional loss (Kagan had worked on her campaign) and her own "liberal views". “I absorbed ... liberal principles early,” she said. “More to the point, I have retained them fairly intact to this day.”
In the column, Kagan also expressed her despair the state of the political left at the time, bemoaning the lack of “real Democrats — not the closet Republicans that one sees so often these days” and the success of “anonymous but Moral Majority-backed ... avengers of ‘innocent life’ and the B-1 Bomber, these beneficiaries of a general turn to the right and a profound disorganization on the left.”
At Princeton, Elena Kagan's law school room mate was Sarah Walzer, the daughter of Princeton social sciences professor Michael Walzer.
Coincidentally Michael Walzer was a leader of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, both nationally and on campus..
In 1990 Michael Walzer was identified as a member of Democratic Socialists of America.
Professor Walzer was also upset at Ronald Reagan's famous victory
Daily Princetonian, March 4, 1981
In her undergraduate thesis at Princeton entitled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933," Kagan lamented the decline of socialism in the country as "sad" for those who still hope to "change America." She asked why the "greatness" of socialism was not reemerging as a major political force:
In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?
"Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism’s glories than of socialism’s greatness,” she wrote in her thesis. “Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation.”
Kagan called the story of the socialist movement’s demise “a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America ... In unity lies their only hope.”
Elena Kagan spent a year working on her 1981 thesis, under the direction of Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.
When news of the thesis recently sparked controversy, Wilentz came out in defense of his former student.
Said Wilentz "sympathy for the movement of people who were trying to better their lives isn’t something to look down on... Studying something doesn’t necessarily mean that you endorse it. It means you’re into it. That’s what historians do...
Elena Kagan is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period."
Few would be more qualified to identify a socialist than Sean Wilentz
In May 1980, Princeton University's Progressive Forum sponsored a May Day rally opposite the Firestone Library. An advertisement for the event in the Daily Princetonian, "Workers of Princeton unite for a May Day rally" named speakers as Sean Wilentz and Stanley Aronowitz - a prominent D.S.A. leader
Daily Princetonian, May 1, 1980
Today Sean Willentz serves on the board of Dissent magazine, which is effectively a mouthpiece for Democratic Socialists of America.
Dissent's masthead is Marxist heavy and lists several well known D.S.A. affiliates including the late Irving Howe, Joanne Barkan, David Bensman, Mitchell Cohen, Maxine Phillips, Mark Levinson, Bogdan Denitch, Erazim Kohak, Deborah Meier, Harold Meyerson, Jo-Ann Mort, Carol O'Clearicain (NYC Finance Commissioner under David Dinkins) and Cornel West - a member of Barack Obama's 2008 Black Advisory Council.
One of Dissent's two editors is Elena Kagan's old room mate's Dad, Michael Walzer.
The other is Michael Kazin, an historian of the Communist Party and a veteran of the 1969 Venceremos Brigade to Cuba.
At Princeton, Elena Kagan won a fellowship to Oxford University, in England, where she studied “the history of British and European trade unionism.”
President Obama himself, has a long history with Democratic Socialists of America.
Is it possible that Elena Kagan shares similar associations?
Should she be asked some questions on the subject?
Unfortunately America’s majority Democrat Party US Senate with the assistance of a few Republicans on Capitol Hill are just before confirming a radical left-wing nominee who has no actual Judicial experience as a anti-military, pro-choice, anti-Defense of Marriage, pro-government healthcare, pro-illegal immigration, etc. Along the way, we will find Elena Kagan to be in support all the social values that you and I believe in as Judeo-Christian values. I believe we will find Elena Kagan to be a mirror-image of another radical left-wing Barack Obama.
Many in the main-stream media and even the more Conservatives are merely saying Elena Kagan confirmation will not change SCOTUS as her confirmation would replace John Paul Stevens. Each confirmation to the nine (9) member SCOTUS nominees should stand on their own, not as any comparative replacement. Nominations and confirmations to SCOTUS are lifetime appointments.
Americans must “Take America Back”. God Bless America.
Oscar Y. Harward
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/
President Barack Obama's nomination to the U.S. Supreme court, Elena Kagan, has been sold to the public as a "moderate" - yes, a little liberal leaning, but moderate none the less.
In this first of a series of posts, I look at Elena Kagan's patterns of association.
If Elena Kagan is a moderate, why then has she long associated with people connected to three interrelated organizations - the Communist Party USA, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee/ Democratic Socialists of America and the far left Washington D.C. think tank, Institute for Policy Studies?
Raised on New Yorks' Upper West Side, Elena Kagan's parents were both politically active in a place and era where politics was dominated by the Democratic, Socialist and Communist parties.
Elena's mother Gloria Kagan campaigned to elect far left Democratic Congressman, William Fitts Ryan. Her older brother Marc Kagan was active in the socialist influenced New Directions movement in the Transport Workers Union. When one of its leaders, Roger Toussaint, was elected union president in 2000, Mr. Kagan became his chief of staff, until a falling out occurred in 2003.
Marc Kagan's former comrade and boss, Roger Toussaint is prominent in the communist initiated Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, which now led by D.S.A. member William Lucy. He also serves in the leadership of the Center for the Study of Working Class Life at Stony Brook University, alongside Ray Markey from the Communist Party offshoot Committees of Correspondence and D.S.A. leaders Gerry Hudson, Mark Levinson, Stanley Aronowitz and Frances Fox Piven, co-originator of the infamous Cloward - Piven Strategy.
Elena Kagan would later dedicate her Princeton history thesis on socialism in New York City to her activist brother.
I would like to thank my brother Marc whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism and in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.
Kagan first became interested in politics in high school and worked as a legislative intern for Rep. Ted Weiss, a Democrat from New York, during the summer of 1978, and as deputy press secretary for Rep. Liz Holtzman in the summer after her junior year.
The late Ted Weiss was very far to the left. In 1978 Congressmen Ted Weiss, John Burton, Ron Dellums (D.S.A. member), John Conyers (D.S.A. supporter) , Don Edwards, Charles Rangel and others, attended a meeting organized for the Soviet front World Peace Council on Capitol Hill.
W.P.C. delegation members included President Romesh Chandra (Communist Party of India), KGB Colonel Radomir Bogdanov and Oleg Kharkhardin of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union International Department.
In 1981 another World Peace Council delegation led by Romesh Chandra toured the U.S. to publicize the "nuclear freeze" then being promoted by Leonid Brezhnev.
This group met with several far left Congressmen at the Capitol, including Weiss, John Conyers, George Crockett, Ron Dellums, Don Edwards and Mervyn Dymally.
During one of the meetings in these Congressmen's offices an official of the Communist Party USA reportedly was present and made a speech recommending that the "peace movement" unite in supporting the cause of several terrorist groups including the PLO and the communist guerillas in EI Salvador
Weiss was also close to the Institute for Policy Studies. In 1983 I.P.S. celebrated its 20th anniversary with an April 5, reception at the National Building Museum attended by approximately 1,000 I.P.S. staffers and former staff.
The Congressional I.P.S. committee members included Ted Weiss, Philip Burton , George Crockett, Ron Dellums , Tom Harkin and Leon Panetta, later appointed by President Obama to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
Liz Holtzman is also way left of center. In the late 1980s and early 1980's the Marxist based Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, or D.S.O.C. (later to become Democratic Socialists of America, or D.S.A.) was highly influential inside the New York Democratic Party and city government - even Mayor David Dinkins was a member.
On August 6 1993, a rally to commemorate Hiroshima Day was held in Dag Hammarskjold Park, New York. The rally was designed "to kickoff a national campaign to collect a million signatures supporting a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, commend president Clinton for extending the nuclear testing moratorium, urge renewal of the Non Proliferation Treaty, urge swift and complete nuclear disarmament."
The event was sponsored by the radical Metro New York Peace Action Council.
Speakers included Liz Holtzman, then NYC Comptroller, leftist Congressmen Charles Rangel and Edolphus Towns, Leslie Cagan of Committees of Correspondence and the Cuba Information Project, Congressmen Major Owens (D.S.A. member) and Jerry Nadler (D.S.O.C. member) NYC City Councilor Ruth Messinger (D.S.O.C./ D.S.A. member) and David McReynolds, a leader of the Socialist Party USA and also a D.S.A. member.
Nearly 5 years later, in March 1998, McReynolds delivered a eulogy at a memorial service for Chicago D.S.A. activist Saul Mendelson. Fellow D.S.A. comrades Carl Marx Shier and Deborah Meier also spoke, as did then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama.
At Princeton Elena Kagan’s political beliefs emerged in an opinion piece she wrote for the Daily Princetonian a few weeks after Ronald Reagan's victorious 1980 election night. Kagan described her disappointment at Liz Holtzman’s Congressional loss (Kagan had worked on her campaign) and her own "liberal views". “I absorbed ... liberal principles early,” she said. “More to the point, I have retained them fairly intact to this day.”
In the column, Kagan also expressed her despair the state of the political left at the time, bemoaning the lack of “real Democrats — not the closet Republicans that one sees so often these days” and the success of “anonymous but Moral Majority-backed ... avengers of ‘innocent life’ and the B-1 Bomber, these beneficiaries of a general turn to the right and a profound disorganization on the left.”
At Princeton, Elena Kagan's law school room mate was Sarah Walzer, the daughter of Princeton social sciences professor Michael Walzer.
Coincidentally Michael Walzer was a leader of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, both nationally and on campus..
In 1990 Michael Walzer was identified as a member of Democratic Socialists of America.
Professor Walzer was also upset at Ronald Reagan's famous victory
Daily Princetonian, March 4, 1981
In her undergraduate thesis at Princeton entitled "To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933," Kagan lamented the decline of socialism in the country as "sad" for those who still hope to "change America." She asked why the "greatness" of socialism was not reemerging as a major political force:
In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation's established parties?
"Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism’s glories than of socialism’s greatness,” she wrote in her thesis. “Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation.”
Kagan called the story of the socialist movement’s demise “a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America ... In unity lies their only hope.”
Elena Kagan spent a year working on her 1981 thesis, under the direction of Princeton historian Sean Wilentz.
When news of the thesis recently sparked controversy, Wilentz came out in defense of his former student.
Said Wilentz "sympathy for the movement of people who were trying to better their lives isn’t something to look down on... Studying something doesn’t necessarily mean that you endorse it. It means you’re into it. That’s what historians do...
Elena Kagan is about the furthest thing from a socialist. Period. And always had been. Period."
Few would be more qualified to identify a socialist than Sean Wilentz
In May 1980, Princeton University's Progressive Forum sponsored a May Day rally opposite the Firestone Library. An advertisement for the event in the Daily Princetonian, "Workers of Princeton unite for a May Day rally" named speakers as Sean Wilentz and Stanley Aronowitz - a prominent D.S.A. leader
Daily Princetonian, May 1, 1980
Today Sean Willentz serves on the board of Dissent magazine, which is effectively a mouthpiece for Democratic Socialists of America.
Dissent's masthead is Marxist heavy and lists several well known D.S.A. affiliates including the late Irving Howe, Joanne Barkan, David Bensman, Mitchell Cohen, Maxine Phillips, Mark Levinson, Bogdan Denitch, Erazim Kohak, Deborah Meier, Harold Meyerson, Jo-Ann Mort, Carol O'Clearicain (NYC Finance Commissioner under David Dinkins) and Cornel West - a member of Barack Obama's 2008 Black Advisory Council.
One of Dissent's two editors is Elena Kagan's old room mate's Dad, Michael Walzer.
The other is Michael Kazin, an historian of the Communist Party and a veteran of the 1969 Venceremos Brigade to Cuba.
At Princeton, Elena Kagan won a fellowship to Oxford University, in England, where she studied “the history of British and European trade unionism.”
President Obama himself, has a long history with Democratic Socialists of America.
Is it possible that Elena Kagan shares similar associations?
Should she be asked some questions on the subject?
The Holy Alphabet
"I AM too blessed to be stressed!"
http://lpintop.tripod.com/laurasinspirationalpages/id29.html
The shortest distance between a problem and a solution is the distance between your knees and the floor.
The one who kneels to the Lord can stand up to anything. Love and peace be with you forever, Amen.
Although things are not perfect
Because of trial or pain
Continue in thanksgiving
Do not begin to blame
Even when the times are hard
Fierce winds are bound to blow
God is forever able
Hold on to what you know
Imagine life without His love
Joy would cease to be
Keep thanking Him for all the things
Love imparts to thee
Move out of "Camp Complaining"
No weapon that is known
On earth can yield the power
Praise can do alone
Quit looking at the future
Redeem the time at hand
Start every day with worship
To "thank" is a command
Until we see Him coming
Victorious in the sky
We'll run the race with gratitude
X alting God most high
Yes, there'll be good times and yes some will be bad, but...
Zion waits in glory...where none are ever sad!
http://lpintop.tripod.com/laurasinspirationalpages/id29.html
The shortest distance between a problem and a solution is the distance between your knees and the floor.
The one who kneels to the Lord can stand up to anything. Love and peace be with you forever, Amen.
Although things are not perfect
Because of trial or pain
Continue in thanksgiving
Do not begin to blame
Even when the times are hard
Fierce winds are bound to blow
God is forever able
Hold on to what you know
Imagine life without His love
Joy would cease to be
Keep thanking Him for all the things
Love imparts to thee
Move out of "Camp Complaining"
No weapon that is known
On earth can yield the power
Praise can do alone
Quit looking at the future
Redeem the time at hand
Start every day with worship
To "thank" is a command
Until we see Him coming
Victorious in the sky
We'll run the race with gratitude
X alting God most high
Yes, there'll be good times and yes some will be bad, but...
Zion waits in glory...where none are ever sad!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Obama, Elena Kagan, & US Senate Democrats Building A Liberal SCOTUS
On October 31, 2008, Democrat Party Presidential nominee Barack Obama said, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
Along the way since his January, 2009 inauguration, President Obama with the support on the majority left-wing Democrat Party on Capitol Hill has kept his promise. Obama and the majority Democrat Party have ‘crammed down our throats’ much left-wing legislation including ‘ObamaCare’, an expensive and demanding socialistic healthcare program. You may remember that no member of Congress or our Senate could honestly admit that they read the entire ‘ObamaCare’ legislation before voting on it. Speaker Pelosi said we could find out what was in the law ‘after’ we passed it.
Obama has previously nominated and the majority Democrat Party US Senate has confirmed a new liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to SCOTUS.
Now, Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to SCOTUS. To begin with, Elena Kagan has ‘NO’ experience as any Judge. Yet Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) says that Kagan is ‘superbly qualified’ and ‘in the mainstream of thinking’.
As for me, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) represents the most powerful left-wing activist leader on Capitol Hill against our social Judeo-Christian values and serves as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Leahy’s co-senator in Sen. Bernie Sanders who votes more as a Socialist on most every issue may place Vermont the most radical left-wing state in our Union, as well as on Capitol Hill. You may also remember that Vermont Judge Edward Cashman handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many, many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven (7) years old. http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4319605.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has now received over 170,000 pages of documents related to nominee Kagan. Senate Judiciary Minority Leader Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has requested additional information reference to her service as a law clerk under SCOTUS Thurgood Marshall and while serving in the Clinton administration. "This is a very young nominee, with a very thin legal record, a very strong commitment to politics and liberal causes and an ideology of judging that seems to favor and respect judges who advance the law beyond its plain meaning. In many ways, I'm feeling this is a more dangerous nominee (than Sonia Sotomayor)’. ‘She currently is serving as President Obama’s Solicitor General, but does not have any background as a Judge. Every other member of the Supreme Court came from federal appeals court posts’. Sen. Patrick Leahy has refused Republican requests to delay the hearing so as to review more than 170,000 pages of documents.
There are many important questions where Elena Kagan should be examined. Here is a few:
Where does Kagan stand on Arizona having a right to legislate illegal immigrants? Does she support Arizona’s new law as Constitutional?
Kagan, as Dean of Law at Harvard University, banned the military from recruiting students because of the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy — in defiance of Federal law. How does Kagan substantiate her defiance of Federal law?
Where does Kagan stand on the 1st. Amendment? Democrats seem to create legislation providing the funding of the Democrat Party via organized labor, 527’s, etc. SCOTUS recently overturned much of the McCain/Feingold legislation which denied corporations to contribute. Does and/or will she support the SCOTUS decision?
While working under President Clinton and making gun control a priority, Kagan should articulate her directive restricting semiautomatic weapons. What are her views on the 2nd. Amendment? Does Kagan support the SCOTUS decision of June 28, 2010 which says the 2nd. Amendment supersedes all state legislation? Does she support any or all of the 2nd. Amendment?
In summary, it appears the Democrat Party is in the process of ‘cramming down our throats’ the confirmation of Elena Kagan without anyone having the time to read and learn her record; very comparable as to how the Democrat Party on Capitol Hill ‘crammed down our throats’ ‘ObamaCare’ without reading the legislation. I suppose as Speaker Pelosi may say, ‘We can find out about Justice Kagan after her confirmation’.
The majority Democrat Party members on Capitol Hill are forcing a nominee’s hearing of a candidate for a lifetime appointment without even allowing the minority Republican Party to totally investigate Elena Kagan’s history. Remember, President Obama and the majority Democrat Party US Senate, are demanding the US Senate and America to confirm this nominee who has no experience as a Judge and to approve this candidate without a full investigation. America must not allow Obama’s ‘fundamental transformation of America’.
God Bless America!
Oscar Y. Harward
Along the way since his January, 2009 inauguration, President Obama with the support on the majority left-wing Democrat Party on Capitol Hill has kept his promise. Obama and the majority Democrat Party have ‘crammed down our throats’ much left-wing legislation including ‘ObamaCare’, an expensive and demanding socialistic healthcare program. You may remember that no member of Congress or our Senate could honestly admit that they read the entire ‘ObamaCare’ legislation before voting on it. Speaker Pelosi said we could find out what was in the law ‘after’ we passed it.
Obama has previously nominated and the majority Democrat Party US Senate has confirmed a new liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor to SCOTUS.
Now, Obama has nominated Elena Kagan to SCOTUS. To begin with, Elena Kagan has ‘NO’ experience as any Judge. Yet Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) says that Kagan is ‘superbly qualified’ and ‘in the mainstream of thinking’.
As for me, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) represents the most powerful left-wing activist leader on Capitol Hill against our social Judeo-Christian values and serves as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Leahy’s co-senator in Sen. Bernie Sanders who votes more as a Socialist on most every issue may place Vermont the most radical left-wing state in our Union, as well as on Capitol Hill. You may also remember that Vermont Judge Edward Cashman handed out a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl many, many times over a four-year span starting when she was seven (7) years old. http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=4319605.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has now received over 170,000 pages of documents related to nominee Kagan. Senate Judiciary Minority Leader Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has requested additional information reference to her service as a law clerk under SCOTUS Thurgood Marshall and while serving in the Clinton administration. "This is a very young nominee, with a very thin legal record, a very strong commitment to politics and liberal causes and an ideology of judging that seems to favor and respect judges who advance the law beyond its plain meaning. In many ways, I'm feeling this is a more dangerous nominee (than Sonia Sotomayor)’. ‘She currently is serving as President Obama’s Solicitor General, but does not have any background as a Judge. Every other member of the Supreme Court came from federal appeals court posts’. Sen. Patrick Leahy has refused Republican requests to delay the hearing so as to review more than 170,000 pages of documents.
There are many important questions where Elena Kagan should be examined. Here is a few:
Where does Kagan stand on Arizona having a right to legislate illegal immigrants? Does she support Arizona’s new law as Constitutional?
Kagan, as Dean of Law at Harvard University, banned the military from recruiting students because of the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy — in defiance of Federal law. How does Kagan substantiate her defiance of Federal law?
Where does Kagan stand on the 1st. Amendment? Democrats seem to create legislation providing the funding of the Democrat Party via organized labor, 527’s, etc. SCOTUS recently overturned much of the McCain/Feingold legislation which denied corporations to contribute. Does and/or will she support the SCOTUS decision?
While working under President Clinton and making gun control a priority, Kagan should articulate her directive restricting semiautomatic weapons. What are her views on the 2nd. Amendment? Does Kagan support the SCOTUS decision of June 28, 2010 which says the 2nd. Amendment supersedes all state legislation? Does she support any or all of the 2nd. Amendment?
In summary, it appears the Democrat Party is in the process of ‘cramming down our throats’ the confirmation of Elena Kagan without anyone having the time to read and learn her record; very comparable as to how the Democrat Party on Capitol Hill ‘crammed down our throats’ ‘ObamaCare’ without reading the legislation. I suppose as Speaker Pelosi may say, ‘We can find out about Justice Kagan after her confirmation’.
The majority Democrat Party members on Capitol Hill are forcing a nominee’s hearing of a candidate for a lifetime appointment without even allowing the minority Republican Party to totally investigate Elena Kagan’s history. Remember, President Obama and the majority Democrat Party US Senate, are demanding the US Senate and America to confirm this nominee who has no experience as a Judge and to approve this candidate without a full investigation. America must not allow Obama’s ‘fundamental transformation of America’.
God Bless America!
Oscar Y. Harward
Saturday, June 26, 2010
ADAMS: Inside the Black Panther case Anger, ignorance and lies
Finally, DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams has resigned President Obama’s Department of Justice as a “Voting Rights Attorney” over Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to dismiss the voting rights violations in November, 2008 in Pennsylvania.
Read my views: http://oneminutelawyer.com/?p=2087 – Oscar Y. Harward
By J. Christian Adams
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/25/inside-the-black-panther-case-anger-ignorance-and-/?page=1
Illustration: Black Panther justice by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times
On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.
The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.
The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation. But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam.
Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ's skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.
The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Tom Perez, has testified repeatedly that the "facts and law" did not support this case. That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this administration has not invited that outcome through the corrupt dismissal.
Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal - Loretta King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and Steve Rosenbaum - did not even read the internal Justice Department memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. admitted that he did not read the Arizona immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he had not bothered to read the most important department documents detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black Panther case. Christopher Coates, the former Voting Section chief, was so outraged at this dereliction of responsibility that he actually threw the memos at Mr. Rosenbaum in the meeting where they were discussing the dismissal of the case. The department subsequently removed all of Mr. Coates' responsibilities and sent him to South Carolina.
Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary Committee that federal "Rule 11" required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers know that Rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the case. Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the dismissal.
Some have called the actions in Philadelphia an isolated incident, not worthy of federal attention. To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the law clearly prohibits even isolated incidents of voter intimidation.
Others have falsely claimed that no voters were affected. Not only did the evidence rebut this claim, but the law does not require a successful effort to intimidate; it punishes even the attempt.
Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases.
Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.
Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these core American principles has passed.
J. Christian Adams is a lawyer based in Virginia who served as a voting rights attorney at the Justice Department until this month. He blogs at electionlawcenter.com.
Read my views: http://oneminutelawyer.com/?p=2087 – Oscar Y. Harward
By J. Christian Adams
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/25/inside-the-black-panther-case-anger-ignorance-and-/?page=1
Illustration: Black Panther justice by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times
On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case.
The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney.
The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation. But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam.
Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ's skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.
The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Tom Perez, has testified repeatedly that the "facts and law" did not support this case. That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this administration has not invited that outcome through the corrupt dismissal.
Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal - Loretta King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and Steve Rosenbaum - did not even read the internal Justice Department memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. admitted that he did not read the Arizona immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he had not bothered to read the most important department documents detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black Panther case. Christopher Coates, the former Voting Section chief, was so outraged at this dereliction of responsibility that he actually threw the memos at Mr. Rosenbaum in the meeting where they were discussing the dismissal of the case. The department subsequently removed all of Mr. Coates' responsibilities and sent him to South Carolina.
Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary Committee that federal "Rule 11" required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers know that Rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the case. Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the dismissal.
Some have called the actions in Philadelphia an isolated incident, not worthy of federal attention. To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the law clearly prohibits even isolated incidents of voter intimidation.
Others have falsely claimed that no voters were affected. Not only did the evidence rebut this claim, but the law does not require a successful effort to intimidate; it punishes even the attempt.
Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases.
Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.
Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these core American principles has passed.
J. Christian Adams is a lawyer based in Virginia who served as a voting rights attorney at the Justice Department until this month. He blogs at electionlawcenter.com.
Stroke
Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue
I am posting this one as I suffered from a stroke on America’s Birthday, July 4, 2002. – Oscar Y. Harward
Posted by Madhava Gosh
http://walkingthefenceline.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/blood-clotsstroke-they-now-have-a-fourth-indicator-the-tongue/
INFORMATION EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW………………………
Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue
I will continue to forward this every time it comes around!
STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters…..S.T.R.
My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree.
If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously.
Please read:
STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) .she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.
They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening
Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.. Some don’t die they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
It only takes a minute to read this…
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the ’3′ steps, STR. Read and Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today.)
R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue
NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue… If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.
A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.
I have done my part. Will you?
I am posting this one as I suffered from a stroke on America’s Birthday, July 4, 2002. – Oscar Y. Harward
Posted by Madhava Gosh
http://walkingthefenceline.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/blood-clotsstroke-they-now-have-a-fourth-indicator-the-tongue/
INFORMATION EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW………………………
Blood Clots/Stroke – They Now Have a Fourth Indicator, the Tongue
I will continue to forward this every time it comes around!
STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters…..S.T.R.
My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree.
If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously.
Please read:
STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) .she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.
They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening
Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 pm Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.. Some don’t die they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
It only takes a minute to read this…
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke…totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the ’3′ steps, STR. Read and Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
S *Ask the individual to SMILE.
T *Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today.)
R *Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call emergency number immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue
NOTE: Another ‘sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ‘stick’ out his tongue… If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other, that is also an indication of a stroke.
A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.
I have done my part. Will you?
Busted: Governments, Pensions, Unions
By Dr. Gary North
http://americanvision.org/2877/busted-governments-pensions-unions/?utm_source=Weekly+Review&utm_campaign=f2c33826ce-Weekly_Review_06_24_2010&utm_medium=email
We are seeing the end of an era. The trade union movement in the United States has declined for the last 30 years. It is now in its final stages. The only area of the economy in which unions still have any degree of clout is in government. The union movement barely functions outside of government employment. Today, as states and municipalities face massive deficits, the union movement is threatened with destruction.
Last week, the governor of the State of New York began working out a deal to delay the imposition of drastic spending cuts in state and local governments. The problem facing all levels of government in New York is simple: the pension funds are not being funded adequately to enable retirees to receive what they have been promised. The retirees were overwhelmingly members of various trade unions. For decades, they successfully gained above-market wages and far above-market pension promises.
Because unions have some political clout, state legislatures have cooperated. Union members have been able to benefit at the expense of taxpayers.
Now, however, the pension funds are under-funded. The decline of the stock market in 2008 and 2009 so eroded pension fund assets that municipalities and the State of New York have no likelihood of being able to recover from those losses in order to meet the obligations to retirees. There is no obvious solution to this problem. The governments over-promised to unions, and union executives over-promised to union members. Those promises cannot be met, according to specialists who have studied the pension programs.
The governor and the legislature have a problem. They need to fund the pensions adequately. But the politicians do not want to raise taxes in what is already one of the most heavily taxed states in the United States. The politicians also do not wish to cut spending.
Municipalities and the state government choose to maintain high wages for their employees, because their employees threaten to vote against anyone who attempts to reduce spending. So, there is only one alternative: the state and local municipalities must borrow the money in the capital markets.
The problem with this is that investors understand that state and local governments are unlikely to be able to pay off the bonds that are issued today in order to refinance the lagging pension systems. So, the state of New York and other municipalities will have to pay high interest rates in order to secure funding. They do not want to do that, either.
Where can they borrow the money? It should be obvious. The governor and the legislature intend to borrow the money from the state pension fund. State and local governments will borrow from the fund, issuing the fund IOUs.
These IOUs will be at a rate of interest significantly below the projected rate of return that the state pension fund’s administrators have assumed would have to prevail in order to meet the obligations of the fund. State and local governments will pay about 5% to the pension fund, but pension fund executives and accountants have assumed that the pension fund would make 8% per year, long-term.
What will make up the shortfall between what pension fund administrators have assumed the fund would earn and the payments into the fund by the state and municipalities? Obviously, somebody has to make up the difference. The governor and the legislature say that the stock market will make up the difference. There will be a huge move in the stock market, and this will fill the coffers of the pension fund. Then, when it is time to pay retirees, the pension fund administrators will simply sell stocks to other investors, take the cash, and write checks to the retirees. http://www.garynorth.com/snip/979.htm
All of this assumes that the stock market will recover. Also, there will be willing buyers of stocks that will be sold by the pension funds at all levels. Of course, nobody can say how the stock market is going to go up by this remarkable percentage.
IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE
The governor and the legislature have the power to write IOUs to the state pension fund in the name of the people. The people are going to have to pay, whether they like it or not. The people are going to come through. The people are going to willingly accept the obligations that have been made in their name, and they will not revolt politically against pensioners who are being paid pensions higher than the income of the voters. We know the people will do this, because politicians have promised that they will do this.
If this sounds utterly crazy, consider the funding of the Social Security System.
It also is running deficits. It also is statistically incapable of delivering on its promises. The Federal government continues to borrow money, and part of this money is used to pay off obligations to pensioners.
The Federal government assumes that there is no limit to its ability to borrow money at less than a percent per annum in short-term markets. The politicians also assume that the capital markets will enable the government to roll over this debt indefinitely. An increasing percentage of this debt will have to be paid to Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries.
No one calls the Federal government to account. Voters continue to re-elect politicians, and these politicians continually promise that all obligations to Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries will be kept, as promised. But the politicians do not raise taxes, and surely they will not balance the budget, let alone run a surplus, which is necessary if all of the government obligations are going to be met at low interest rates over the long run.
There is no tax revolt. There is no rising up of voters against obligations that have been made in the name of the voters. Voters assume that something will be worked out.
So, when the governor of the State of New York and the Legislature finally get together to arrange the transfer of IOUs from municipal governments and the state to the pension plan of the state government, there will be no massive protest.
There is no awareness on the part of voters of the impossibility of the situation that is facing them. Yet why should the voters be upset? Voters are poorly informed but not stupid. They know that some future group of voters will simply stop funding the pension program. They know that when things get tough, there will be a new Legislature, and there will be a new governor, and these faithful politicians will do whatever is necessary to get themselves re-elected.
TRUSTING THE PENSION FAIRY
We are seeing the destruction of the last remnants of the American trade union movement. Probably the best recent example of this war on trade unions was the decision of the Federal government to nationalize General Motors.
General Motors could not meet its pension obligations and its health-care obligations to unionized members and formerly unionized members who are now retired. It was impossible statistically for the company to survive, given its level of pension fund obligations. So, the government intervened. It put a cash infusion into the company and then restructured the debt of the company. It stiffed all of the pensioners, stiffed all of the bondholders, and transferred the stock to the pension fund of the United Auto Workers. “Let them eat profits.” This got General Motors off the hook. The pensioners are now dependent upon the profitability of the company to maintain their income.
Any pensioner who thinks that General Motors is going to be profitable enough to secure payment of all the obligations to retirees is as naive as investors were two years ago who did not sell their General Motors stock, because senior managers of the company said that the company was not considering bankruptcy as an option. The trusting investors refused to look at the statistical reality of the pension fund obligations. They believed in the pension fairy. Somehow, the pension fairy was going to raise enough money to enable the company to remain profitable and still meet the obligations to retirees.
Then there were the trusting souls who bought and held bonds issued by General Motors. They now have little to show for their trust.
Today, retirees believe in the profitability fairy, who is going to intervene to make it possible for General Motors to make enough money to pay off its pension obligations.
So, all along the line, everybody trusted in the pension fairy. Everybody believed that it was possible to kick the can out another month, another year, another 20 years. Investors believed that it was possible to profit by buying General Motors stock, General Motors bonds, and General Motors promises to pay.
Everybody was stupid. Everybody refused to look at the statistical reality. Smart people should have known that there was no possibility that the company would survive. The company did not survive under the old ownership conditions. The company went bankrupt.
What happened to General Motors is going to happen to most pension funds in most municipal governments and most state governments over the next 10 to 20 years. One by one, they are going to go belly up.
State and local governments have only one way out politically: stiff the retirees. They are going to do this. They are going to do this as surely as General Motors’ management accepted the intervention of the Federal government to enable the company to shed its obligations to retirees in exchange for keeping the doors open. Those executives who had bought General Motors stock, or who had worked for the promise of stock options, lost the bet. But they still have jobs. They still have a source of income.
There is a law of politics here: decision-makers are willing to sacrifice past promises to others for the sake of their own present income.
The retirees now have promises from the pension fund of the UAW that somehow they’re going to be paid off. Another round of promises has begun. There really is a sucker born every minute, and the suckers believe promises regarding their pensions.
THE BIGGEST LOSERS
The biggest losers over the next two decades will be pensioners. There is no group in the United States that is as vulnerable as pensioners, and there is no group that is less likely to be able to maintain its income.
Within the category of “pensioners,” there is a subcategory: “government pensioners.” These are people who spent their careers working for state and local governments. They received above-market wages, and they also received above-market promises regarding their pensions. They trusted the promises.
Now, however, it is clear what is going to happen to them. Anyway, it is clear to me what is going to happen to them, and it is clear to skeptics of government promises. But the market for government promises is still very strong. There are still people out there who believe that politicians’ promises are as good as gold. In fact, they believe that they are better than gold. They do not own gold, but they are completely dependent on government promises to secure their financial futures.
The biggest liability that faces state and local governments across the country is the pension fund liability. Governments have not yet cut these liabilities by defaulting, because unions are in a position to strike against any government that were to do this. Furthermore, union members vote strongly, and they vote as a bloc.
Any politician who campaigns openly to stiff retired union members who worked for the government is not going to be elected. He probably isn’t going to be elected over the next few years. But, at some point, he is going to be elected. When push comes to shove, and the voters see that it’s either them or the retirees, they are going to vote for politicians who say that it is time to cut back on pension fund obligations.
The difficulty, however, is the court system. Judges are in a position to declare such a move illegal: violation of contract. Judges were in a position to make such a move illegal to General Motors.
But there is an option. That option is bankruptcy. Any state or local government, like any corporation, can eliminate its past obligations in one fell swoop. A company can declare bankruptcy, and thereby stiff the bondholders and the pension funds. This is perfectly legal, and we’ve already seen it at work. There was no hue and cry against General Motors or the Federal government when the Federal government stiffed bondholders. There will not be a hue and cry when state and local governments stiff the bondholders.
Voters have let politicians run up enormous debts on the assumption that these debts will never have to be paid. Voters allow this because they want to buy now and pay later. So, politicians follow their demands. Politicians spend now and promise to pay later. But, voters being what they are, they are not going to change their desire to buy now and pay later. When it comes to that point where the ability to buy now is being limited by previous promises to pay later, voters will ask politicians for another round of buying now and pain later. The best way for the politicians to do this is to declare bankruptcy, and start the whole process over again.
THE END OF THE ROAD FOR UNIONS
When this happens, the last bastion of political strength for the trade union movement will be visibly manifested as a myth. The trade unions today have almost disappeared from American life, except for government employment. The contraction of employment in manufacturing’s sector of the economy has gone on for a generation.
Within manufacturing, trade unions for the most part have no clout. Union members know that it is possible to replace them at any time. They can be replaced by robots. They can be replaced by outsourcing. They know that they have no ability to strike, because their plants will be closed. So, the trade union movement is gutted.
The unions have been incapable of organizing the service industries. Except for the service industries that are tied directly to Federal regulation or Federal funding, the service sector of the economy is not unionized. This means that the union movement has not a great deal of clout politically.
Union members who are still in the labor force, and who still vote for union officers are going to see to it that their bread is buttered before the bread of retired members. They are going to see to it that they maintain their above-market wages, despite the fact that obligations to retirees must be contracted or eliminated in order for them to continue to be paid their salaries. There is no question in my mind that union members inside government departments will sacrifice the income of retired members if that is the only way to secure their own salaries. It will be.
As soon as politicians understand this, they are going to consider the possibility of declaring bankruptcy. We are not there yet. It may be another five years or even longer for some states to face the day of reckoning. But New York State and California are facing it today. They are playing games with the figures, in order to keep the political game operating without having judges decide who gets what.
The unions hold the hammer for as long as state and local governments stay out of the bankruptcy courts. But as soon as the state or local government goes into bankruptcy court, bankruptcy law takes over, and the promises made to bondholders and retirees go out the window. At that point, the lawyers will decide who is going to be paid.
BLAME THE GOVERNMENT
The trade union movement was created by the Federal government. Before the New Deal, and before the National Labor Relations Board, meaning before the Wagner Act, unions had very little clout. They could strike, but business owners could hire people who are willing to work at wages that were unacceptable to the union members. For as long as businesses could go into the labor markets and hire people who are willing to work at low rates of pay, the unions had no ability to extract above-market wages from corporations. Only when the New Deal intervened in the labor markets, forcing businessmen to negotiate with unions, and making it illegal for businesses to hire able-bodied workers at a wage that the workers were willing to accept, was it that the trade union movement gained control over about 40% of the American economy. Unions never gained as much as 50% nationwide. Unions were always in a minority. This is not true in Europe, but it was true in the United States.
The government has steadily allowed businesses to adopt practices which made it impossible for trade union members to strike. This was done very quietly, and was done by Democrats. Democrats voted to reduce tariffs, and in doing so, made it possible for businesses to move offshore. Democrats voted to create a tax structure that enables businesses to put capital offshore and earn money offshore without paying Federal taxes on any taxes collected by foreign governments. These policies enabled American large businesses to escape the clutches of American large trade unions.
The trade unions fought this, but they did not have sufficient votes to persuade members of the Democratic Party to vote against legislation that passed such authority on to American large businesses.
So, we now see the results. Consumers have the ability to buy at lower prices. No trade union can compel any large industry in the United States to deal with it exclusively. The above-market wages that were earned for decades by trade union members no longer exist, except for those who were grandfathered in. Unions have been willing to let new workers be paid under a different pay schedule. The most obvious example of this is the airline pilots’ union. New members of the union are paid significantly less than the old-timers.
The government of the United States passed legislation in the 1930s that enabled trade unions to gain power over the labor markets. Step-by-step, the Federal government acquiesced to a series of changes which moved back union power. The only exceptions today are in those branches of government that have not successfully broken the unions. But the strategy used at General Motors is transferable. It can be used to reduce the liabilities of state and local governments to pension funds. If the courts force state and local governments to maintain the rules established by older agreements, the courts will probably allow the states to renegotiate the arrangement for present employees. If this proves to be politically impossible, then the states are going to go bankrupt. They’re going to go bankrupt as surely as General Motors went bankrupt. They’re going to go bankrupt for the same reason: pension fund obligations.
CONCLUSION
Anybody who is an employee of a state or local government who does not plan to have employment after his retirement is living in a fantasy world.
Anyone who believes that state and local governments will fulfill their promises to retirees is going to suffer enormous losses at a time in their lives when they are unable to go back into the labor markets and reestablish their income.
Families of retirees who will be stiffed in a wave of state and local bankruptcies are going to have to pick up the tab for the parents. The parents believed the government promises, and the parents are going to find out how unreliable government promises are. Government promises are no more reliable than the latest public opinion polls. When the voters decided it’s either them or the retirees, the retirees can kiss their income goodbye.
http://americanvision.org/2877/busted-governments-pensions-unions/?utm_source=Weekly+Review&utm_campaign=f2c33826ce-Weekly_Review_06_24_2010&utm_medium=email
We are seeing the end of an era. The trade union movement in the United States has declined for the last 30 years. It is now in its final stages. The only area of the economy in which unions still have any degree of clout is in government. The union movement barely functions outside of government employment. Today, as states and municipalities face massive deficits, the union movement is threatened with destruction.
Last week, the governor of the State of New York began working out a deal to delay the imposition of drastic spending cuts in state and local governments. The problem facing all levels of government in New York is simple: the pension funds are not being funded adequately to enable retirees to receive what they have been promised. The retirees were overwhelmingly members of various trade unions. For decades, they successfully gained above-market wages and far above-market pension promises.
Because unions have some political clout, state legislatures have cooperated. Union members have been able to benefit at the expense of taxpayers.
Now, however, the pension funds are under-funded. The decline of the stock market in 2008 and 2009 so eroded pension fund assets that municipalities and the State of New York have no likelihood of being able to recover from those losses in order to meet the obligations to retirees. There is no obvious solution to this problem. The governments over-promised to unions, and union executives over-promised to union members. Those promises cannot be met, according to specialists who have studied the pension programs.
The governor and the legislature have a problem. They need to fund the pensions adequately. But the politicians do not want to raise taxes in what is already one of the most heavily taxed states in the United States. The politicians also do not wish to cut spending.
Municipalities and the state government choose to maintain high wages for their employees, because their employees threaten to vote against anyone who attempts to reduce spending. So, there is only one alternative: the state and local municipalities must borrow the money in the capital markets.
The problem with this is that investors understand that state and local governments are unlikely to be able to pay off the bonds that are issued today in order to refinance the lagging pension systems. So, the state of New York and other municipalities will have to pay high interest rates in order to secure funding. They do not want to do that, either.
Where can they borrow the money? It should be obvious. The governor and the legislature intend to borrow the money from the state pension fund. State and local governments will borrow from the fund, issuing the fund IOUs.
These IOUs will be at a rate of interest significantly below the projected rate of return that the state pension fund’s administrators have assumed would have to prevail in order to meet the obligations of the fund. State and local governments will pay about 5% to the pension fund, but pension fund executives and accountants have assumed that the pension fund would make 8% per year, long-term.
What will make up the shortfall between what pension fund administrators have assumed the fund would earn and the payments into the fund by the state and municipalities? Obviously, somebody has to make up the difference. The governor and the legislature say that the stock market will make up the difference. There will be a huge move in the stock market, and this will fill the coffers of the pension fund. Then, when it is time to pay retirees, the pension fund administrators will simply sell stocks to other investors, take the cash, and write checks to the retirees. http://www.garynorth.com/snip/979.htm
All of this assumes that the stock market will recover. Also, there will be willing buyers of stocks that will be sold by the pension funds at all levels. Of course, nobody can say how the stock market is going to go up by this remarkable percentage.
IN THE NAME OF THE PEOPLE
The governor and the legislature have the power to write IOUs to the state pension fund in the name of the people. The people are going to have to pay, whether they like it or not. The people are going to come through. The people are going to willingly accept the obligations that have been made in their name, and they will not revolt politically against pensioners who are being paid pensions higher than the income of the voters. We know the people will do this, because politicians have promised that they will do this.
If this sounds utterly crazy, consider the funding of the Social Security System.
It also is running deficits. It also is statistically incapable of delivering on its promises. The Federal government continues to borrow money, and part of this money is used to pay off obligations to pensioners.
The Federal government assumes that there is no limit to its ability to borrow money at less than a percent per annum in short-term markets. The politicians also assume that the capital markets will enable the government to roll over this debt indefinitely. An increasing percentage of this debt will have to be paid to Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries.
No one calls the Federal government to account. Voters continue to re-elect politicians, and these politicians continually promise that all obligations to Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries will be kept, as promised. But the politicians do not raise taxes, and surely they will not balance the budget, let alone run a surplus, which is necessary if all of the government obligations are going to be met at low interest rates over the long run.
There is no tax revolt. There is no rising up of voters against obligations that have been made in the name of the voters. Voters assume that something will be worked out.
So, when the governor of the State of New York and the Legislature finally get together to arrange the transfer of IOUs from municipal governments and the state to the pension plan of the state government, there will be no massive protest.
There is no awareness on the part of voters of the impossibility of the situation that is facing them. Yet why should the voters be upset? Voters are poorly informed but not stupid. They know that some future group of voters will simply stop funding the pension program. They know that when things get tough, there will be a new Legislature, and there will be a new governor, and these faithful politicians will do whatever is necessary to get themselves re-elected.
TRUSTING THE PENSION FAIRY
We are seeing the destruction of the last remnants of the American trade union movement. Probably the best recent example of this war on trade unions was the decision of the Federal government to nationalize General Motors.
General Motors could not meet its pension obligations and its health-care obligations to unionized members and formerly unionized members who are now retired. It was impossible statistically for the company to survive, given its level of pension fund obligations. So, the government intervened. It put a cash infusion into the company and then restructured the debt of the company. It stiffed all of the pensioners, stiffed all of the bondholders, and transferred the stock to the pension fund of the United Auto Workers. “Let them eat profits.” This got General Motors off the hook. The pensioners are now dependent upon the profitability of the company to maintain their income.
Any pensioner who thinks that General Motors is going to be profitable enough to secure payment of all the obligations to retirees is as naive as investors were two years ago who did not sell their General Motors stock, because senior managers of the company said that the company was not considering bankruptcy as an option. The trusting investors refused to look at the statistical reality of the pension fund obligations. They believed in the pension fairy. Somehow, the pension fairy was going to raise enough money to enable the company to remain profitable and still meet the obligations to retirees.
Then there were the trusting souls who bought and held bonds issued by General Motors. They now have little to show for their trust.
Today, retirees believe in the profitability fairy, who is going to intervene to make it possible for General Motors to make enough money to pay off its pension obligations.
So, all along the line, everybody trusted in the pension fairy. Everybody believed that it was possible to kick the can out another month, another year, another 20 years. Investors believed that it was possible to profit by buying General Motors stock, General Motors bonds, and General Motors promises to pay.
Everybody was stupid. Everybody refused to look at the statistical reality. Smart people should have known that there was no possibility that the company would survive. The company did not survive under the old ownership conditions. The company went bankrupt.
What happened to General Motors is going to happen to most pension funds in most municipal governments and most state governments over the next 10 to 20 years. One by one, they are going to go belly up.
State and local governments have only one way out politically: stiff the retirees. They are going to do this. They are going to do this as surely as General Motors’ management accepted the intervention of the Federal government to enable the company to shed its obligations to retirees in exchange for keeping the doors open. Those executives who had bought General Motors stock, or who had worked for the promise of stock options, lost the bet. But they still have jobs. They still have a source of income.
There is a law of politics here: decision-makers are willing to sacrifice past promises to others for the sake of their own present income.
The retirees now have promises from the pension fund of the UAW that somehow they’re going to be paid off. Another round of promises has begun. There really is a sucker born every minute, and the suckers believe promises regarding their pensions.
THE BIGGEST LOSERS
The biggest losers over the next two decades will be pensioners. There is no group in the United States that is as vulnerable as pensioners, and there is no group that is less likely to be able to maintain its income.
Within the category of “pensioners,” there is a subcategory: “government pensioners.” These are people who spent their careers working for state and local governments. They received above-market wages, and they also received above-market promises regarding their pensions. They trusted the promises.
Now, however, it is clear what is going to happen to them. Anyway, it is clear to me what is going to happen to them, and it is clear to skeptics of government promises. But the market for government promises is still very strong. There are still people out there who believe that politicians’ promises are as good as gold. In fact, they believe that they are better than gold. They do not own gold, but they are completely dependent on government promises to secure their financial futures.
The biggest liability that faces state and local governments across the country is the pension fund liability. Governments have not yet cut these liabilities by defaulting, because unions are in a position to strike against any government that were to do this. Furthermore, union members vote strongly, and they vote as a bloc.
Any politician who campaigns openly to stiff retired union members who worked for the government is not going to be elected. He probably isn’t going to be elected over the next few years. But, at some point, he is going to be elected. When push comes to shove, and the voters see that it’s either them or the retirees, they are going to vote for politicians who say that it is time to cut back on pension fund obligations.
The difficulty, however, is the court system. Judges are in a position to declare such a move illegal: violation of contract. Judges were in a position to make such a move illegal to General Motors.
But there is an option. That option is bankruptcy. Any state or local government, like any corporation, can eliminate its past obligations in one fell swoop. A company can declare bankruptcy, and thereby stiff the bondholders and the pension funds. This is perfectly legal, and we’ve already seen it at work. There was no hue and cry against General Motors or the Federal government when the Federal government stiffed bondholders. There will not be a hue and cry when state and local governments stiff the bondholders.
Voters have let politicians run up enormous debts on the assumption that these debts will never have to be paid. Voters allow this because they want to buy now and pay later. So, politicians follow their demands. Politicians spend now and promise to pay later. But, voters being what they are, they are not going to change their desire to buy now and pay later. When it comes to that point where the ability to buy now is being limited by previous promises to pay later, voters will ask politicians for another round of buying now and pain later. The best way for the politicians to do this is to declare bankruptcy, and start the whole process over again.
THE END OF THE ROAD FOR UNIONS
When this happens, the last bastion of political strength for the trade union movement will be visibly manifested as a myth. The trade unions today have almost disappeared from American life, except for government employment. The contraction of employment in manufacturing’s sector of the economy has gone on for a generation.
Within manufacturing, trade unions for the most part have no clout. Union members know that it is possible to replace them at any time. They can be replaced by robots. They can be replaced by outsourcing. They know that they have no ability to strike, because their plants will be closed. So, the trade union movement is gutted.
The unions have been incapable of organizing the service industries. Except for the service industries that are tied directly to Federal regulation or Federal funding, the service sector of the economy is not unionized. This means that the union movement has not a great deal of clout politically.
Union members who are still in the labor force, and who still vote for union officers are going to see to it that their bread is buttered before the bread of retired members. They are going to see to it that they maintain their above-market wages, despite the fact that obligations to retirees must be contracted or eliminated in order for them to continue to be paid their salaries. There is no question in my mind that union members inside government departments will sacrifice the income of retired members if that is the only way to secure their own salaries. It will be.
As soon as politicians understand this, they are going to consider the possibility of declaring bankruptcy. We are not there yet. It may be another five years or even longer for some states to face the day of reckoning. But New York State and California are facing it today. They are playing games with the figures, in order to keep the political game operating without having judges decide who gets what.
The unions hold the hammer for as long as state and local governments stay out of the bankruptcy courts. But as soon as the state or local government goes into bankruptcy court, bankruptcy law takes over, and the promises made to bondholders and retirees go out the window. At that point, the lawyers will decide who is going to be paid.
BLAME THE GOVERNMENT
The trade union movement was created by the Federal government. Before the New Deal, and before the National Labor Relations Board, meaning before the Wagner Act, unions had very little clout. They could strike, but business owners could hire people who are willing to work at wages that were unacceptable to the union members. For as long as businesses could go into the labor markets and hire people who are willing to work at low rates of pay, the unions had no ability to extract above-market wages from corporations. Only when the New Deal intervened in the labor markets, forcing businessmen to negotiate with unions, and making it illegal for businesses to hire able-bodied workers at a wage that the workers were willing to accept, was it that the trade union movement gained control over about 40% of the American economy. Unions never gained as much as 50% nationwide. Unions were always in a minority. This is not true in Europe, but it was true in the United States.
The government has steadily allowed businesses to adopt practices which made it impossible for trade union members to strike. This was done very quietly, and was done by Democrats. Democrats voted to reduce tariffs, and in doing so, made it possible for businesses to move offshore. Democrats voted to create a tax structure that enables businesses to put capital offshore and earn money offshore without paying Federal taxes on any taxes collected by foreign governments. These policies enabled American large businesses to escape the clutches of American large trade unions.
The trade unions fought this, but they did not have sufficient votes to persuade members of the Democratic Party to vote against legislation that passed such authority on to American large businesses.
So, we now see the results. Consumers have the ability to buy at lower prices. No trade union can compel any large industry in the United States to deal with it exclusively. The above-market wages that were earned for decades by trade union members no longer exist, except for those who were grandfathered in. Unions have been willing to let new workers be paid under a different pay schedule. The most obvious example of this is the airline pilots’ union. New members of the union are paid significantly less than the old-timers.
The government of the United States passed legislation in the 1930s that enabled trade unions to gain power over the labor markets. Step-by-step, the Federal government acquiesced to a series of changes which moved back union power. The only exceptions today are in those branches of government that have not successfully broken the unions. But the strategy used at General Motors is transferable. It can be used to reduce the liabilities of state and local governments to pension funds. If the courts force state and local governments to maintain the rules established by older agreements, the courts will probably allow the states to renegotiate the arrangement for present employees. If this proves to be politically impossible, then the states are going to go bankrupt. They’re going to go bankrupt as surely as General Motors went bankrupt. They’re going to go bankrupt for the same reason: pension fund obligations.
CONCLUSION
Anybody who is an employee of a state or local government who does not plan to have employment after his retirement is living in a fantasy world.
Anyone who believes that state and local governments will fulfill their promises to retirees is going to suffer enormous losses at a time in their lives when they are unable to go back into the labor markets and reestablish their income.
Families of retirees who will be stiffed in a wave of state and local bankruptcies are going to have to pick up the tab for the parents. The parents believed the government promises, and the parents are going to find out how unreliable government promises are. Government promises are no more reliable than the latest public opinion polls. When the voters decided it’s either them or the retirees, the retirees can kiss their income goodbye.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Obama, Soros, American Money, and Oil In the Gulf of Mexico
In the free world, our most natural resources include energy; coal, gas, oil, plutonium, wind, etc. With energy, Americans abilities are unlimited. Whenever energy such as gasoline and oil is denied, the entire economy, including jobs, are restricted.
Leaders in the Democrat Party have restricted drilling and refining gasoline and oil for a period of years. It is essential to inquire as to why any elected American representative would compel our own citizens to pay excessive prices in purchasing gasoline and oil from Middle Eastern Arab nations, while at the same time, damaging our own economy. For the answer, you must follow the money.
Let us try to configure this one. George Soros is one of the world’s richest man and one of the major donors to the Democrat Party. Soros has an investment of $811 million invested in the Brazilian oil company, Petrobras. A George Soros based Brazilian Oil Exploration could make billions with President Obama being successful with a moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. That could be a windfall for George Soros, President Obama, and the Democrat Party, all at the expense to all Americans. Remember, Obama sends tax supported grants and funds to organized labor and other community based organizations some $50.00 in return to $1.00 on their investment to the Democrat Party.
Under the Obama moratorium American companies are denied to drill for additional oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Brazil, being financed with US dollars, is allowed to drill for additional oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil prices are increasing as US companies are disallowed to drill for additional oil. Brazilian Oil Company, Petrobras, and Brazilian Oil Exploration collects the profits as Soros’s drilling company is being financed by America’s loan.
George Soros with MoveOn, his radical left-wing organization, is identified as the “Godfather of Socialism”.
Under this Obama/Soros association, Americans are being denied reasonable gasoline and oil prices which is costing our economy and our jobs. The Democrat Party continues to stymie our economy. Over the past 30 years:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/08/team-obama-funds-oil-drilling-project-in-brazil-nixes-offshore-drilling-in-us-update-soros-invested-heavily-in-petrobras/:
Democrats have blocked the development of new sources of petroleum.
Democrats have blocked drilling in ANWR.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the coast of Florida.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the east coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the west coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast.
Democrats have blocked building oil refineries.
Democrats have blocked clean nuclear energy production.
Democrats have blocked clean coal production.
America has more gasoline and oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait together. Let us retrieve and refine it in support of more jobs in rebuilding our weakened economy.
Oscar Y. Harward
oharward@carolina.rr.com
http://conservativechristianvoice.blogspot.com
Leaders in the Democrat Party have restricted drilling and refining gasoline and oil for a period of years. It is essential to inquire as to why any elected American representative would compel our own citizens to pay excessive prices in purchasing gasoline and oil from Middle Eastern Arab nations, while at the same time, damaging our own economy. For the answer, you must follow the money.
Let us try to configure this one. George Soros is one of the world’s richest man and one of the major donors to the Democrat Party. Soros has an investment of $811 million invested in the Brazilian oil company, Petrobras. A George Soros based Brazilian Oil Exploration could make billions with President Obama being successful with a moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. That could be a windfall for George Soros, President Obama, and the Democrat Party, all at the expense to all Americans. Remember, Obama sends tax supported grants and funds to organized labor and other community based organizations some $50.00 in return to $1.00 on their investment to the Democrat Party.
Under the Obama moratorium American companies are denied to drill for additional oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Brazil, being financed with US dollars, is allowed to drill for additional oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil prices are increasing as US companies are disallowed to drill for additional oil. Brazilian Oil Company, Petrobras, and Brazilian Oil Exploration collects the profits as Soros’s drilling company is being financed by America’s loan.
George Soros with MoveOn, his radical left-wing organization, is identified as the “Godfather of Socialism”.
Under this Obama/Soros association, Americans are being denied reasonable gasoline and oil prices which is costing our economy and our jobs. The Democrat Party continues to stymie our economy. Over the past 30 years:
http://gatewaypundit.firstthings.com/2009/08/team-obama-funds-oil-drilling-project-in-brazil-nixes-offshore-drilling-in-us-update-soros-invested-heavily-in-petrobras/:
Democrats have blocked the development of new sources of petroleum.
Democrats have blocked drilling in ANWR.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the coast of Florida.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the east coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off of the west coast.
Democrats have blocked drilling off the Alaskan coast.
Democrats have blocked building oil refineries.
Democrats have blocked clean nuclear energy production.
Democrats have blocked clean coal production.
America has more gasoline and oil reserves than Saudi Arabia and Kuwait together. Let us retrieve and refine it in support of more jobs in rebuilding our weakened economy.
Oscar Y. Harward
oharward@carolina.rr.com
http://conservativechristianvoice.blogspot.com
Look what they found near the Tex/Mex border!Unbelievable !!!
Arizona’s legislature passed a new law to stop illegal immigration criminal activity. Now, President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, other members or the Obama administration, and many Democrats on Capitol Hill are in support of the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to declare the Arizona law as unconstitutional. Below, read and view what illegal immigrants are bringing into America; an example as to what law enforcement in Arizona is facing. God Bless Arizona and God Bless America.
Copy and paste: http://duby325.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/texanmexican-border/
God Bless America ....
Well....maybe we'd be hasty to seal our southern borders....enforce our laws....or maybe we're just a little hasty with making illegal immigration a point of enforcement (could lead to racial profiling you know).
A PRIME example of why we MUST support our neighbors in Arizona , and bolster the Texan border.
This was a Zetas camp (a Mexican cartel w/ Guatemalan ties) that was found near Higueras, Nuevo Laredo , Mexico .
The "state" of Nuevo Laredo borders the Rio Grande , and this town is a little over 100 miles away from Laredo , TX .
Please forgive the crude translations; my Spanish isn't that great.
Exactly where did you hear about it in OUR media? Thank God for the border patrol that this did not come over the border. There is one=20 "graphic picture" but it tells the story.
Let's quit trying to decide who is violating our federal laws "to make a better life", and ENFORCE the laws across the board on EVERYONE violating them.
That way we won't have to lament or wonder just how many of the=20 illegal aliens legalized (synonymous with rewarded) under the latest=20 attempt to legislate away the millions who have spit on our laws, ar= MS-13, Zetas, cartel members, and other scum that would be "legal".=There are many Hispanic men and women that I both love and respect that understand and support Arizona and any citizen's desire to keep our=20 country a safe place to live and raise our children and grandchildre=. It's not racist, and it's not xenophobic. I hope we can ignore and=20 recognize the majority of the naysayers for the photo-op, attention-=oving clowns they are, and start coming together as AMERICANS that=want what's best for AMERICA !
"This Tuesday, the army found makeshift camp in Higueras, where=they encountered a massive arsenal."
At least 25 suspects managed to get away.
Click to view largeDownload this gallery (ZIP, undefined KB)Download full size (80 KB)
They found 12 trucks/SUVs under a shaded canopy.
The vehicles contained military & police issue accessories.
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It's estimated that they found around 200 rifles, and 30 pistols.
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They also found grenade and rocket launchers.
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There were over 300 magazines and uniforms.
They also found a box of 60 grenades.
Click to view largeDownload this gallery (ZIP, undefined KB)Download full size (40 KB)
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Click to view largeDownload this gallery (ZIP, 1492 KB)Download full size (85 KB)
Comments (0)Leave a comment... To leave a comment on this posterous, please login by clicking one of the following.
Copy and paste: http://duby325.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/texanmexican-border/
God Bless America ....
Well....maybe we'd be hasty to seal our southern borders....enforce our laws....or maybe we're just a little hasty with making illegal immigration a point of enforcement (could lead to racial profiling you know).
A PRIME example of why we MUST support our neighbors in Arizona , and bolster the Texan border.
This was a Zetas camp (a Mexican cartel w/ Guatemalan ties) that was found near Higueras, Nuevo Laredo , Mexico .
The "state" of Nuevo Laredo borders the Rio Grande , and this town is a little over 100 miles away from Laredo , TX .
Please forgive the crude translations; my Spanish isn't that great.
Exactly where did you hear about it in OUR media? Thank God for the border patrol that this did not come over the border. There is one=20 "graphic picture" but it tells the story.
Let's quit trying to decide who is violating our federal laws "to make a better life", and ENFORCE the laws across the board on EVERYONE violating them.
That way we won't have to lament or wonder just how many of the=20 illegal aliens legalized (synonymous with rewarded) under the latest=20 attempt to legislate away the millions who have spit on our laws, ar= MS-13, Zetas, cartel members, and other scum that would be "legal".=There are many Hispanic men and women that I both love and respect that understand and support Arizona and any citizen's desire to keep our=20 country a safe place to live and raise our children and grandchildre=. It's not racist, and it's not xenophobic. I hope we can ignore and=20 recognize the majority of the naysayers for the photo-op, attention-=oving clowns they are, and start coming together as AMERICANS that=want what's best for AMERICA !
"This Tuesday, the army found makeshift camp in Higueras, where=they encountered a massive arsenal."
At least 25 suspects managed to get away.
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They found 12 trucks/SUVs under a shaded canopy.
The vehicles contained military & police issue accessories.
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It's estimated that they found around 200 rifles, and 30 pistols.
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They also found grenade and rocket launchers.
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There were over 300 magazines and uniforms.
They also found a box of 60 grenades.
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Monday, June 21, 2010
I'M 63 AND I'M TIRED
By Robert A. Hall
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate
Dennis Miller Radio
http://www.dennismillerradio.com/g/sixty-three-and-tired/167.html
I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.
I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Christian people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor;" of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers;" of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery;" of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.
I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois. I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.
I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as Governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.
I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military...Those are the citizens we need.
I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life-and-death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.
I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.
I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.
Published with permission from Robert A. Hall
Original post from www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate
Dennis Miller Radio
http://www.dennismillerradio.com/g/sixty-three-and-tired/167.html
I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought McMansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble help them with their own money.
I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America offers. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have the economy of Zimbabwe, the freedom of the press of China, the crime and violence of Mexico, the tolerance for Christian people of Iran, and the freedom of speech of Venezuela.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor;" of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers;" of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery;" of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Shari'a law tells them to.
I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois. I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly of an all-knowing government.
I'm tired of a news media that thinks Bush's fundraising and inaugural expenses were obscene, but that think Obama's, at triple the cost, were wonderful; that thinks Bush exercising daily was a waste of presidential time, but Obama exercising is a great example for the public to control weight and stress; that picked over every line of Bush's military records, but never demanded that Kerry release his; that slammed Palin, with two years as Governor, for being too inexperienced for VP, but touted Obama with three years as senator as potentially the best president ever. Wonder why people are dropping their subscriptions or switching to Fox News? Get a clue. I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but the media and Kerry drove me to his camp in 2004.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think Gay people choose to be Gay, but I damn sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from cool people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana.
I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers," especially the ones who aren't working, but are living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track for citizenship any Hispanic person, who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military...Those are the citizens we need.
I'm tired of latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station, trashing our military. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life-and-death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's the deal. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, and the critics can let themselves be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of schoolgirls in Indonesia, because the girls were Christian. Then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear.
I'm tired of people telling me that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has worked to loot the public for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet.
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
Speaking of poor, I'm tired of hearing people with air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing.
I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I'm damn tired. But I'm also glad to be 63. Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter.
Published with permission from Robert A. Hall
Original post from www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Obama’s Administration Supports Criminal Activity
One line of the Creed of the United States Junior Chamber (Jaycees) is one which says: ‘We believe - That government should be of laws rather than of men’. The question of today, ‘Is the Obama administration promoting and supporting criminal activity?’
Illegal immigration is the issue of today. President Obama, many of his appointees and the majority Democrats on Capitol Hill are attempting to ‘cram’ illegal immigration down our throats just as they ‘crammed’ ObamaCare down our throats. These left-wingers are attempting to ‘legalize’ all illegal immigrants and their illegal activity.
The newly passed Arizona legislation was passed to stop illegal activity. The first illegal activity for illegal immigrants is to forge and/or purchase a counterfeit identification such as a Social Security Card, driver’s license, etc. These purchased and/or otherwise fictitious documents are stolen records, often on living American taxpayers. Illegal immigrants steal from the taxpayers as they receive Medicaid, food, public education, and other benefits. Many illegal immigrants bring illegal drugs and other criminal activity into our communities. An overwhelming number of arrested illegal immigrants are habitual criminals.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have both openly criticized the new Arizona law even though both have said they never had read the legislation. Additionally, ICE Director John Morton is refusing to deport illegal immigrants as required by Arizona law and US Code http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh4pc81WW4Q. For his decision, President Obama should fire and AG Eric Holder should prosecute John Morton under the law.
Arizona GOP US Senate challenger JD Hayworth shared his thoughts as well, saying "if he (Morton) doesn't believe in enforcing the law, then it's time for him to resign."
According to news reports on June 18, 2010, President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder is preparing to challenge Arizona’s ‘illegal immigration’ law. Currently, AG Holder is refusing to uphold Arizona law and/or current US Code. President Obama’s administration is in the process of making illegal immigration a normal legal process, while denying Arizona, or any other states’ rights as defined under ‘Amendment 10’ of our US Constitution which says, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people’.
Under President Obama and his administration, why do we have a Constitution? When will the majority Democrat Party on Capitol Hill Impeach President Obama? Our Constitution has ‘survived’ for 234 years. For our Constitution to continue, it must be respected and obeyed. President Obama and AG Holder are accepting their own laws where, why, and when they please.
Let us further substantiate President Obama and AG Eric Holder supporting illegal activity. In the November 2008 General Election, the US Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying that they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms, and racial slurs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU. There is video with audio to support this illegal activity. Now, Obama’s AG Eric Holder has dismissed charges against the Black Panthers in Pennsylvania who were intimidating citizens attempting to vote in the 2008 General Election. Free and open voting is one of the most precious freedoms.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Civil Rights lawyer Bartle Bull calls it ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen’. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn2DjQUgVF8.
When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in Federal District Court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain the US Justice Department would have prevailed by default. Instead, the US Justice Department in May 2009 suddenly ‘dismissed’ the charges allowing two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574361071968458430.html?
On May 16, 2010 approximately 500 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in buses while being escorted by a Metro DC Police Department to the residence of Greg Baer, a Bank of America executive, to protest and intimidate Mr. Baer. It appears D.C. police may have been in partnership with these SEIU members. Video and audio shows these 500 ‘union’ protestors on Mr. Baer’s lawn and even on his porch. His teenage son who was alone at home was terrified with the SEIU activity. There has been no further inquiry by AG Eric Holder and/or any other law enforcement investigators for possible prosecution. When ‘unions’ are involved, Obama has shown his total support. For every $1.00 in ‘labor unions’ support for Obama’s election as US President and others of the majority Democrat Party, ‘labor union’ support has received approximately $50.00 - much with taxpayers’ money http://www.thefoxnation.com/justice/2010/05/21/dc-cops-cahoots-seiu-thugs.
In two other incidents, US Senatorial nominee Joe Sestak (D-PA) has reportedly been offered appointments in the Obama administration in lieu of dropping his candidacy for US Senate. Other news reports Colorado US Senatorial nominee Andrew Romanoff (D)-CO) was offered three jobs in the Obama administration in lieu of his dropping his candidacy for US Senate. Where is Attorney General Eric Holder in upholding the US Code?
Another news report is that Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, while serving as a member of Congress (D-IL-5), lived rent-free, with a BP adviser, while residing in Washington, DC. Did he report his rent-free housing on his required congressional reports and his election financial reports? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/06/rahm-emanuel-bp-gul-oil-spill.html. His rent-free housing should exceed Federal Election laws? How corrupt is Rahm Emanuel? How corrupt is BP? Is this one of the problems in stopping the oil spill and cleaning up our Gulf of Mexico waters? Is President Obama allowing BP to delay stopping the oil spill so as to facilitate his own ‘Cap and Trade’? In the end, do not be surprised to learn if community organizations resembling ACORN and/or SEIU associated unions ascertain a substantial amount of the $20 Billion BP set-aside. According to CNS, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said that a major part of the Democrats’ Cap-Trade Bill is ‘essentially written by BP’ http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/67454.
Review the radical left-wing, government-subsidized group ACORN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU and all of their alleged illegal activity from voter fraud http://michellemalkin.com/2008/03/13/more-left-wing-voter-fraud-allegations-against-acorn/, mortgage counseling http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/03/the-left-wing-mortgage-counseling-racket/, to illegal underage sex http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Arizakz_qc. ACORN’s services have been to serve President Obama and the Democrat Party and much primarily paid for with taxpayers’ money http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iU5WE4LhQo&feature=related. Many of these illegal charges have been swept under the rug without ‘any open and independent’ investigations.
The allegations continue; Investigate Obama’s nominees who failed to pay their own taxes. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Tom Daschle, Obama’s first HHS nominee, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Why would Obama appoint so many of those who are in violation of tax laws? Why should law-abiding Americans be forced to correlate with these law-breakers?
Does Obama and the majority Democrat Party of Capitol Hill understand why the American taxpayers are so upset at the taxpayers’ spending? The taxpayers’ TEA believers are for real. The Democrat Party’s idea is to dishonor the TEA believers’ political principles. That is another political disgrace.
This summary asserts that President Obama and members of his administration are not practicing ‘That government should be of laws rather than of men’. If this President was a Conservative Republican, majority Capitol Hill Democrats would have rightfully demanded an immediate Presidential Impeachment. Americans deserve responsible law-abiding public servants whose character exceeds reproach.
Oscar Y. Harward
Illegal immigration is the issue of today. President Obama, many of his appointees and the majority Democrats on Capitol Hill are attempting to ‘cram’ illegal immigration down our throats just as they ‘crammed’ ObamaCare down our throats. These left-wingers are attempting to ‘legalize’ all illegal immigrants and their illegal activity.
The newly passed Arizona legislation was passed to stop illegal activity. The first illegal activity for illegal immigrants is to forge and/or purchase a counterfeit identification such as a Social Security Card, driver’s license, etc. These purchased and/or otherwise fictitious documents are stolen records, often on living American taxpayers. Illegal immigrants steal from the taxpayers as they receive Medicaid, food, public education, and other benefits. Many illegal immigrants bring illegal drugs and other criminal activity into our communities. An overwhelming number of arrested illegal immigrants are habitual criminals.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have both openly criticized the new Arizona law even though both have said they never had read the legislation. Additionally, ICE Director John Morton is refusing to deport illegal immigrants as required by Arizona law and US Code http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh4pc81WW4Q. For his decision, President Obama should fire and AG Eric Holder should prosecute John Morton under the law.
Arizona GOP US Senate challenger JD Hayworth shared his thoughts as well, saying "if he (Morton) doesn't believe in enforcing the law, then it's time for him to resign."
According to news reports on June 18, 2010, President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder is preparing to challenge Arizona’s ‘illegal immigration’ law. Currently, AG Holder is refusing to uphold Arizona law and/or current US Code. President Obama’s administration is in the process of making illegal immigration a normal legal process, while denying Arizona, or any other states’ rights as defined under ‘Amendment 10’ of our US Constitution which says, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people’.
Under President Obama and his administration, why do we have a Constitution? When will the majority Democrat Party on Capitol Hill Impeach President Obama? Our Constitution has ‘survived’ for 234 years. For our Constitution to continue, it must be respected and obeyed. President Obama and AG Holder are accepting their own laws where, why, and when they please.
Let us further substantiate President Obama and AG Eric Holder supporting illegal activity. In the November 2008 General Election, the US Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party and three of its members, saying that they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring voters with the weapon, uniforms, and racial slurs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU. There is video with audio to support this illegal activity. Now, Obama’s AG Eric Holder has dismissed charges against the Black Panthers in Pennsylvania who were intimidating citizens attempting to vote in the 2008 General Election. Free and open voting is one of the most precious freedoms.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Civil Rights lawyer Bartle Bull calls it ‘the most blatant form of voter intimidation I've ever seen’. Mr. Bull and others witnessed two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb at a polling place near downtown Philadelphia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn2DjQUgVF8.
When none of the defendants filed any response to the complaint or appeared in Federal District Court in Philadelphia to answer the suit, it appeared almost certain the US Justice Department would have prevailed by default. Instead, the US Justice Department in May 2009 suddenly ‘dismissed’ the charges allowing two of the three defendants to walk away. Against the third defendant, Minister King Samir Shabazz, it sought only an injunction barring him from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of a Philadelphia polling place for the next three years—action that's already illegal under existing law. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550604574361071968458430.html?
On May 16, 2010 approximately 500 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in buses while being escorted by a Metro DC Police Department to the residence of Greg Baer, a Bank of America executive, to protest and intimidate Mr. Baer. It appears D.C. police may have been in partnership with these SEIU members. Video and audio shows these 500 ‘union’ protestors on Mr. Baer’s lawn and even on his porch. His teenage son who was alone at home was terrified with the SEIU activity. There has been no further inquiry by AG Eric Holder and/or any other law enforcement investigators for possible prosecution. When ‘unions’ are involved, Obama has shown his total support. For every $1.00 in ‘labor unions’ support for Obama’s election as US President and others of the majority Democrat Party, ‘labor union’ support has received approximately $50.00 - much with taxpayers’ money http://www.thefoxnation.com/justice/2010/05/21/dc-cops-cahoots-seiu-thugs.
In two other incidents, US Senatorial nominee Joe Sestak (D-PA) has reportedly been offered appointments in the Obama administration in lieu of dropping his candidacy for US Senate. Other news reports Colorado US Senatorial nominee Andrew Romanoff (D)-CO) was offered three jobs in the Obama administration in lieu of his dropping his candidacy for US Senate. Where is Attorney General Eric Holder in upholding the US Code?
Another news report is that Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, while serving as a member of Congress (D-IL-5), lived rent-free, with a BP adviser, while residing in Washington, DC. Did he report his rent-free housing on his required congressional reports and his election financial reports? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/06/rahm-emanuel-bp-gul-oil-spill.html. His rent-free housing should exceed Federal Election laws? How corrupt is Rahm Emanuel? How corrupt is BP? Is this one of the problems in stopping the oil spill and cleaning up our Gulf of Mexico waters? Is President Obama allowing BP to delay stopping the oil spill so as to facilitate his own ‘Cap and Trade’? In the end, do not be surprised to learn if community organizations resembling ACORN and/or SEIU associated unions ascertain a substantial amount of the $20 Billion BP set-aside. According to CNS, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has said that a major part of the Democrats’ Cap-Trade Bill is ‘essentially written by BP’ http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/67454.
Review the radical left-wing, government-subsidized group ACORN http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vJcVgJhNaU and all of their alleged illegal activity from voter fraud http://michellemalkin.com/2008/03/13/more-left-wing-voter-fraud-allegations-against-acorn/, mortgage counseling http://michellemalkin.com/2008/04/03/the-left-wing-mortgage-counseling-racket/, to illegal underage sex http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Arizakz_qc. ACORN’s services have been to serve President Obama and the Democrat Party and much primarily paid for with taxpayers’ money http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iU5WE4LhQo&feature=related. Many of these illegal charges have been swept under the rug without ‘any open and independent’ investigations.
The allegations continue; Investigate Obama’s nominees who failed to pay their own taxes. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Tom Daschle, Obama’s first HHS nominee, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. Why would Obama appoint so many of those who are in violation of tax laws? Why should law-abiding Americans be forced to correlate with these law-breakers?
Does Obama and the majority Democrat Party of Capitol Hill understand why the American taxpayers are so upset at the taxpayers’ spending? The taxpayers’ TEA believers are for real. The Democrat Party’s idea is to dishonor the TEA believers’ political principles. That is another political disgrace.
This summary asserts that President Obama and members of his administration are not practicing ‘That government should be of laws rather than of men’. If this President was a Conservative Republican, majority Capitol Hill Democrats would have rightfully demanded an immediate Presidential Impeachment. Americans deserve responsible law-abiding public servants whose character exceeds reproach.
Oscar Y. Harward
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
On my desk: The Manchurian President
by Ed Morrissey
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/01/on-my-desk-the-manchurian-president/
My friend Aaron Klein, now a WABC radio host who has done some amazing work in probing Islamist terrorism in the Middle East, and Brenda Elliott have turned their attention to domestic politics and Barack Obama in his latest book, The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists. The book, which comes out this week, promises an explosive look at Obama’s relationship to radicals; Klein’s original reporting on Van Jones helped expose the ties the “green jobs czar” had to radical leftists and pushed Jones into eventually resigning his post. Aaron gives Hot Air readers an exclusive preview of one of the connections he reports in the new book:
In just one of the revelations in this politically radioactive release, the book uncovers for the first time where and how Obama first met Weatherman founder Bill Ayers – and it is much earlier than previously believed.
In his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama writes about a speech given during his college years in connection with Students for Economic Democracy. SED was a campus group affiliated with Tom Hayden, one of the principal organizers of Students for a Democratic Society, the 1960s antiwar movement from which Ayers’ Weatherman splintered.
The book ties Obama to a number of other radicals who were associated with SED’s parent group, whose founding members included fellow antiwar protesters, a politician known to be a communist collaborator, and a founding member of the Black Panthers.
Until now, little has been revealed about Obama’s college years, with the president refusing to release his transcript or comment in depth about which specific individuals or organizations he was associated with,
The Manchurian President also reveals Obama’s associations with the Nation of Islam, Black Liberation Theology and black political extremists, with extensive new information on the subjects.
Also detailed are Obama’s deep ties to ACORN, which are much more extensive than previously documented elsewhere. The book additionally describes how a socialist-led, ACORN-affiliated union helped facilitate Obama’s political career and now exerts major influence in the White House.
The Manchurian President contains potentially explosive information not only about President Obama but also concerning other officials in the White House, including top czars and senior advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.
I just received my copy of the book and will try to complete reading it before Aaron appears on The Ed Morrissey Show this week to discuss the book. The book follows the efforts of David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama (reviewed here) and Jerome Corsi’s Obama Nation. Both of those books shed light on Obama’s past political associations and efforts, but didn’t get as much traction as they deserved, thanks to a wave of popular support for Obama.
The effort by Klein and Elliott, coming as it does after fifteen months of disillusioning reality about Obama’s hard-Left agenda, may have more success — and both of the other books may start getting more attention as well. There is another argument to be made, too, which is that the past matters less now than the present. The reality of Obama’s performance will make a more compelling argument in 2012 than the hidden realities of his previous connections. However, if this book delivers on his promise, it will provide more context for the present and help voters connect a few more dots in 2012 than they did in 2008. In any case, as with all of Aaron’s work, it will make great conversation when we chat this coming Wednesday at 4 pm ET on TEMS!
Update: I inexcusably overlooked the fact that Brenda Elliott coauthored the book with Aaron; I’ve updated the post above, and offer my apologies to Ms. Elliott.
Update II: Tom Maguire has more information on the Ayers/Obama relationship.
Update III: The interview is on Wednesday, not Tuesday. I’ve made the correction above.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/01/on-my-desk-the-manchurian-president/
My friend Aaron Klein, now a WABC radio host who has done some amazing work in probing Islamist terrorism in the Middle East, and Brenda Elliott have turned their attention to domestic politics and Barack Obama in his latest book, The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists. The book, which comes out this week, promises an explosive look at Obama’s relationship to radicals; Klein’s original reporting on Van Jones helped expose the ties the “green jobs czar” had to radical leftists and pushed Jones into eventually resigning his post. Aaron gives Hot Air readers an exclusive preview of one of the connections he reports in the new book:
In just one of the revelations in this politically radioactive release, the book uncovers for the first time where and how Obama first met Weatherman founder Bill Ayers – and it is much earlier than previously believed.
In his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama writes about a speech given during his college years in connection with Students for Economic Democracy. SED was a campus group affiliated with Tom Hayden, one of the principal organizers of Students for a Democratic Society, the 1960s antiwar movement from which Ayers’ Weatherman splintered.
The book ties Obama to a number of other radicals who were associated with SED’s parent group, whose founding members included fellow antiwar protesters, a politician known to be a communist collaborator, and a founding member of the Black Panthers.
Until now, little has been revealed about Obama’s college years, with the president refusing to release his transcript or comment in depth about which specific individuals or organizations he was associated with,
The Manchurian President also reveals Obama’s associations with the Nation of Islam, Black Liberation Theology and black political extremists, with extensive new information on the subjects.
Also detailed are Obama’s deep ties to ACORN, which are much more extensive than previously documented elsewhere. The book additionally describes how a socialist-led, ACORN-affiliated union helped facilitate Obama’s political career and now exerts major influence in the White House.
The Manchurian President contains potentially explosive information not only about President Obama but also concerning other officials in the White House, including top czars and senior advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.
I just received my copy of the book and will try to complete reading it before Aaron appears on The Ed Morrissey Show this week to discuss the book. The book follows the efforts of David Freddoso’s The Case Against Barack Obama (reviewed here) and Jerome Corsi’s Obama Nation. Both of those books shed light on Obama’s past political associations and efforts, but didn’t get as much traction as they deserved, thanks to a wave of popular support for Obama.
The effort by Klein and Elliott, coming as it does after fifteen months of disillusioning reality about Obama’s hard-Left agenda, may have more success — and both of the other books may start getting more attention as well. There is another argument to be made, too, which is that the past matters less now than the present. The reality of Obama’s performance will make a more compelling argument in 2012 than the hidden realities of his previous connections. However, if this book delivers on his promise, it will provide more context for the present and help voters connect a few more dots in 2012 than they did in 2008. In any case, as with all of Aaron’s work, it will make great conversation when we chat this coming Wednesday at 4 pm ET on TEMS!
Update: I inexcusably overlooked the fact that Brenda Elliott coauthored the book with Aaron; I’ve updated the post above, and offer my apologies to Ms. Elliott.
Update II: Tom Maguire has more information on the Ayers/Obama relationship.
Update III: The interview is on Wednesday, not Tuesday. I’ve made the correction above.
Dhimmitude: History: Dhimmitude
Is President Obama leading America down the left road in supporting Islamic Muslims rather than Judeo-Christianity? - Oscar Y. Harward
Dhimmitude in History
http://www.dhimmitude.org/d_history_dhimmitude.html
Dhimmitude can only be understood in the context of jihad, because it originates from this ideology. Infidels who submit without fighting to the Islamic armies, are granted a pledge of security. They are protected from the jihad laws against infidels which command killing, slavery, ransom or deportation for the enemies. Peace and security for non-Muslims are recognised only after their submission. Protection status is provided through the Islamization of conquered lands.
Rules of dhimmitude
The vanquished non-Muslims peoples are granted security for their life and possessions, as well as a relative self-autonomous administration and limited religious rights according to the modalities of the conquest. These rights are subject to two conditions: the payment of a poll tax (the jizya) and submission to the provisions of Islamic law.
The concept of toleration is linked to a number of discriminatory obligations in the economic, religious and social fields, imposed by the shari'a on the dhimmis. The transgression by the dhimmis of some of these obligations, abolished their protection, and threaten them with death or slavery. Dhimmis suffered many legal disabilities intended to reduce them to a condition of humiliation, segregation and discrimination. These rules, established from the eight to nine centuries by the founders of the four schools of Islamic law, set the pattern of the Muslim's community's social behavior toward dhimmis.
Jews and Christians are referred to as the People of the Book, they share the same legal status, while other religious group - like the Zoroastrians for instance - were more despised and treated harsher.
Dhimmitude covers more than a millennium of Christian and Jewish history, as well as of other groups. It is a comprehensive civilization encompassing customs, legislation, social behavior. Numerous laws were enacted over the centuries by the Muslim authorities, to implement its principles. It was abolished during the 19th -20th centuries under European pressure and colonization of Arab countries.
Today the resurgence of traditional Islam revitalizes the spirit of jihad against the dar al-harb and of dhimmitude for the non-Muslim minorities.
•Islam and the Jews: The Status of Jews and Christians in Muslim Lands, 1772 CE. From Jewish History Sourcebook. The rules of dhimmitude obligatory under Islamic law, for Jews and Christians (dhimmis) living in Islamized lands, as explained by an Egyptian judge in 1772.
•The Jizyah Tax: Equality And Dignity Under Islamic Law?. Article by Walter Short. An examination of Islamic law regarding Jews and Christians based primarily on the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Since the Muslims in the West and the Muslim world uphold the principle of an Islamic State with Shari'ah Law as the ideal society, the author examines the place of non-Muslims, if the Caliphate was ever restored and applied in the West.
•Islam and Dhimmis: Rejoinder. Article (1987) by Bat Ye'or in response to an article (1986) by Prof. Mark Cohen (Princeton University) in The Jerusalem Quarterly
•Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Article (1979) by Bat Ye'or, Wiener Library Bulletin (Institute of Contemporary History, London)
•Oriental Jewry and the Dhimmi image in contemporary Arab nationalism (1979). Lecture by Bat Ye'or at Jews College, London (Sept. 5, 1978) organised by The Jews in Arab Lands Committee. Chairman of the seminar: The Rt. Hon. Sir Harold Wilson
•Dhimmi Peoples: Oppressed Nations (1978). Four articles by Bat Ye'or written for journals in Bruxelles before President Anwar Sadat's Nov. 1977 visit to Jerusalem. Trans. from French (1977). Published by Editions de l'Avenir (Geneva) for the Centre d'Information et de Documentation sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva)
•Zionism in Islamic Lands: The Case of Egypt. Article (1977) by Bat Ye'or, Wiener Library Bulletin (Institute of Contemporary History, London)
•Protected Peoples under Islam (1976). Article by David G. Littman and Bat Ye'or, Centre d'Information et de Documentation sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva). Quotations from a number of sources, and documents on North African Jewry in the 19th century
•Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide (Introduction), by Bat Ye'or. From the book published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses (2002)
•Jews under Muslim Rule in the late Nineteenth Century. A Wiener library Bulletin article (1975) by David G. Littman, providing some original source documents from the archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paris), translated from the French. They illustrate the harsh reality of dhimmitude under Muslim rule for the Jews in Tunisia, Libya and Morocco from 1864-1911.
•Jews under Muslim Rule--II: Morocco 1903-1912. A Wiener Library Bulletin article (1976) by David G. Littman, with AIU source documents before French colonization. They vividly illustrate the humiliation, misery and exposure to physical violence which was still the lot of the Moroccan Jewish dhimmis 100 years ago. (Dedicated to Professor H.Z. Hirschberg, d. 1976).
•Jews under Muslim Rule: The Case of Persia. A Wiener Library Bulletin article (1979) by David G. Littman providing an overview of the Persian Jewish condition from antiquity. AIU source documents from 1873-1910 show how the individual and communal degradation and oppression of the dhimmi Jews were more pronounced where the shi'a doctrine ruled in Persia, before the Pahlavis (1925-1979), and also in the Yemen.
•Mission to Morocco (1863-1864). Chapter 3 (pp. 171-229) by David G. Littman, in The Century of Moses Montefiore (ed. by Sonia and V.D. Lipman, published for the Littman Library of Jewish Civilzation in Association with the Jewish Historical Society of England by Oxford University Press, 1985). A detailed description of Sir Moses Montefiore's visit to Morocco, illustrating the daily condition of dhimmitude in Morocco. It provides an overview of the situation of Moroccan Jewry in previous centuries, and later, down to the French occupation in 1912.
•Myths and Politics: Origin of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society. Lecture by Bat Ye'or (August 31, 1995) at a Symposium on the Balkan War (Chicago, Illinois) under the auspices of the Lord Byron Foundation For Balkan Studies and The International Strategic Studies Association.
•The Persecution of Christians Under Islam: An Historic Overview, by Virginia Tschanz, The Lion, July 2000, P4
•The Decline of Eastern Christian Communities in the Modern Middle East, by Bat Ye'or. Lecture of November 11, 1996 at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Middle Eastern Unit and The Faculty of Humanities. Chair: Dr. David Satran (Department of Comparative Religion)
Dhimmitude in History
http://www.dhimmitude.org/d_history_dhimmitude.html
Dhimmitude can only be understood in the context of jihad, because it originates from this ideology. Infidels who submit without fighting to the Islamic armies, are granted a pledge of security. They are protected from the jihad laws against infidels which command killing, slavery, ransom or deportation for the enemies. Peace and security for non-Muslims are recognised only after their submission. Protection status is provided through the Islamization of conquered lands.
Rules of dhimmitude
The vanquished non-Muslims peoples are granted security for their life and possessions, as well as a relative self-autonomous administration and limited religious rights according to the modalities of the conquest. These rights are subject to two conditions: the payment of a poll tax (the jizya) and submission to the provisions of Islamic law.
The concept of toleration is linked to a number of discriminatory obligations in the economic, religious and social fields, imposed by the shari'a on the dhimmis. The transgression by the dhimmis of some of these obligations, abolished their protection, and threaten them with death or slavery. Dhimmis suffered many legal disabilities intended to reduce them to a condition of humiliation, segregation and discrimination. These rules, established from the eight to nine centuries by the founders of the four schools of Islamic law, set the pattern of the Muslim's community's social behavior toward dhimmis.
Jews and Christians are referred to as the People of the Book, they share the same legal status, while other religious group - like the Zoroastrians for instance - were more despised and treated harsher.
Dhimmitude covers more than a millennium of Christian and Jewish history, as well as of other groups. It is a comprehensive civilization encompassing customs, legislation, social behavior. Numerous laws were enacted over the centuries by the Muslim authorities, to implement its principles. It was abolished during the 19th -20th centuries under European pressure and colonization of Arab countries.
Today the resurgence of traditional Islam revitalizes the spirit of jihad against the dar al-harb and of dhimmitude for the non-Muslim minorities.
•Islam and the Jews: The Status of Jews and Christians in Muslim Lands, 1772 CE. From Jewish History Sourcebook. The rules of dhimmitude obligatory under Islamic law, for Jews and Christians (dhimmis) living in Islamized lands, as explained by an Egyptian judge in 1772.
•The Jizyah Tax: Equality And Dignity Under Islamic Law?. Article by Walter Short. An examination of Islamic law regarding Jews and Christians based primarily on the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Since the Muslims in the West and the Muslim world uphold the principle of an Islamic State with Shari'ah Law as the ideal society, the author examines the place of non-Muslims, if the Caliphate was ever restored and applied in the West.
•Islam and Dhimmis: Rejoinder. Article (1987) by Bat Ye'or in response to an article (1986) by Prof. Mark Cohen (Princeton University) in The Jerusalem Quarterly
•Aspects of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Article (1979) by Bat Ye'or, Wiener Library Bulletin (Institute of Contemporary History, London)
•Oriental Jewry and the Dhimmi image in contemporary Arab nationalism (1979). Lecture by Bat Ye'or at Jews College, London (Sept. 5, 1978) organised by The Jews in Arab Lands Committee. Chairman of the seminar: The Rt. Hon. Sir Harold Wilson
•Dhimmi Peoples: Oppressed Nations (1978). Four articles by Bat Ye'or written for journals in Bruxelles before President Anwar Sadat's Nov. 1977 visit to Jerusalem. Trans. from French (1977). Published by Editions de l'Avenir (Geneva) for the Centre d'Information et de Documentation sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva)
•Zionism in Islamic Lands: The Case of Egypt. Article (1977) by Bat Ye'or, Wiener Library Bulletin (Institute of Contemporary History, London)
•Protected Peoples under Islam (1976). Article by David G. Littman and Bat Ye'or, Centre d'Information et de Documentation sur le Moyen-Orient (Geneva). Quotations from a number of sources, and documents on North African Jewry in the 19th century
•Islam and Dhimmitude. Where Civilizations Collide (Introduction), by Bat Ye'or. From the book published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press/Associated University Presses (2002)
•Jews under Muslim Rule in the late Nineteenth Century. A Wiener library Bulletin article (1975) by David G. Littman, providing some original source documents from the archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (Paris), translated from the French. They illustrate the harsh reality of dhimmitude under Muslim rule for the Jews in Tunisia, Libya and Morocco from 1864-1911.
•Jews under Muslim Rule--II: Morocco 1903-1912. A Wiener Library Bulletin article (1976) by David G. Littman, with AIU source documents before French colonization. They vividly illustrate the humiliation, misery and exposure to physical violence which was still the lot of the Moroccan Jewish dhimmis 100 years ago. (Dedicated to Professor H.Z. Hirschberg, d. 1976).
•Jews under Muslim Rule: The Case of Persia. A Wiener Library Bulletin article (1979) by David G. Littman providing an overview of the Persian Jewish condition from antiquity. AIU source documents from 1873-1910 show how the individual and communal degradation and oppression of the dhimmi Jews were more pronounced where the shi'a doctrine ruled in Persia, before the Pahlavis (1925-1979), and also in the Yemen.
•Mission to Morocco (1863-1864). Chapter 3 (pp. 171-229) by David G. Littman, in The Century of Moses Montefiore (ed. by Sonia and V.D. Lipman, published for the Littman Library of Jewish Civilzation in Association with the Jewish Historical Society of England by Oxford University Press, 1985). A detailed description of Sir Moses Montefiore's visit to Morocco, illustrating the daily condition of dhimmitude in Morocco. It provides an overview of the situation of Moroccan Jewry in previous centuries, and later, down to the French occupation in 1912.
•Myths and Politics: Origin of the Myth of a Tolerant Pluralistic Islamic Society. Lecture by Bat Ye'or (August 31, 1995) at a Symposium on the Balkan War (Chicago, Illinois) under the auspices of the Lord Byron Foundation For Balkan Studies and The International Strategic Studies Association.
•The Persecution of Christians Under Islam: An Historic Overview, by Virginia Tschanz, The Lion, July 2000, P4
•The Decline of Eastern Christian Communities in the Modern Middle East, by Bat Ye'or. Lecture of November 11, 1996 at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Middle Eastern Unit and The Faculty of Humanities. Chair: Dr. David Satran (Department of Comparative Religion)
BP, Obama, and Rahm Emanuel Potential Corruption
Here we go again! On June 15, 2010 President again is blaming George Bush. In his speech, Obama said, “And when Ken Salazar became my secretary of the interior, one of his very first acts was to clean up the worst of the corruption at this agency. But it's now clear that the problem there ran much deeper and the pace of reform was just too slow”. http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/06/15/Transcript-of-Obamas-speech-on-oil-spil/UPI-13621276650898/
Mr. President, if the Department of Interior was the “worst of the corruption at this agency” then please, identify your words of corruption. Otherwise, it is time for you, Barack Obama, to apologize to President Bush for your uttering off without evidence to substantiate your words. Additionally, it is time for Barack Obama to grow up and accept total responsibility as grown men and women do.
President Obama appears very slow to attack BP and their top executives. Is it because he received a little less than $1Million in campaign donations?
Many are calling for an independent investigation on Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel for his involvement in elections and his alleged offering of jobs in the Obama administration.
A second issue is for an independent investigation for Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel living free of charge in a BP advisor’s apartment. Did Rahm Emmanuel report his free rent on his financial report? If not, would that be another corrupt election violation? If so, would his free rent be more funds than accepted under Federal Election Law?
This could be the appropriate time to call for an independent investigation combining BP’s donations to Barack Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel involvement in elections, and his living free of charge in a BP advisor’s apartment. Could this all be tied to bribery? Let us search out all sleaze now with an independent investigation.
Oscar Y. Harward
Mr. President, if the Department of Interior was the “worst of the corruption at this agency” then please, identify your words of corruption. Otherwise, it is time for you, Barack Obama, to apologize to President Bush for your uttering off without evidence to substantiate your words. Additionally, it is time for Barack Obama to grow up and accept total responsibility as grown men and women do.
President Obama appears very slow to attack BP and their top executives. Is it because he received a little less than $1Million in campaign donations?
Many are calling for an independent investigation on Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel for his involvement in elections and his alleged offering of jobs in the Obama administration.
A second issue is for an independent investigation for Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel living free of charge in a BP advisor’s apartment. Did Rahm Emmanuel report his free rent on his financial report? If not, would that be another corrupt election violation? If so, would his free rent be more funds than accepted under Federal Election Law?
This could be the appropriate time to call for an independent investigation combining BP’s donations to Barack Obama, Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel involvement in elections, and his living free of charge in a BP advisor’s apartment. Could this all be tied to bribery? Let us search out all sleaze now with an independent investigation.
Oscar Y. Harward
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Ewing: Higher ground
David Ewing
http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-voices/ewing-higher-ground
In the beginning, Captain Tom Ryman was a boozer, a bettor and a man a few steps short of God.
Ryman owned a fleet of riverboats that mainly transported goods and whiskey on the Cumberland River. His steamers also provided first-class travel in the area. Ryman served the finest food, distilled water and alcohol on board.
In 1884, Ryman made a large bet that Grover Cleveland would win the presidential election. Ryman was influenced by local gamblers to continue to bet on this 1884 election, and he couldn’t say no as more bets arrived.
By election time, Ryman had waged his entire fortune — including his stately house on the hill near the Cumberland River.
Fortunately for Ryman and the city of Nashville, Grover Cleveland won the presidency. And Ryman, who would later reflect that he had spent “a good part of his life serving the devil,” would put his money to good use.
In 1885, a traveling minister stopped in Nashville for a series of sermons and tent revivals. Ryman and his rowdy friends were part of the thousands in attendance under a big tent downtown. Ryman was present not to listen to the sermon but to heckle and mock.
But instead of disrupting the service, he found himself moved by the words, and he converted to Christianity. He thought it was unfortunate that Nashville did not have a large permanent place for preachers of the gospel, and so he decided to build such a facility.
To show he was a changed man post-conversion, Ryman went down to the dock where his boats were, reduced all the bars on his ships to kindling, and dumped gallons of whiskey from his steamboats into the Cumberland River. He painted Bible quotations where the bars once were.
Ryman selected a site on Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from his office overlooking the Cumberland, for his new building. In his report to donors, Ryman said, “this building is an ornament, not only to the city, but to the state, and when completed as it should be it will certainly be a pride to all of us.”
Ryman hired Nashville’s most famous architect, W.C. Smith — later the architect of Nashville’s Parthenon. He wanted the new building to hold large audiences indoors, where all citizens regardless of social class or religious affiliation could hear the gospel. The new hall would also become the largest convention facility in the South, seating more than 6,000 people.
When the Gospel Tabernacle was near completion in 1892, Ryman was disappointed. He remarked on the “unfinished and crude state of the interior, which at present is provided with only rough seats, and the walls are undressed.” Interestingly, the exposed walls and wooden church pews are now part of the character of the world-famous auditorium.
Desperate to raise the money needed, Ryman spent $25 for names and addresses of 5,000 millionaires. He paid another $110 for postage and mailing to ask these people for money. The millionaire campaign failed, and Ryman changed architects a month later, selecting Hugh C. Thompson, who designed the famous brick gothic structure with the soaring roofline.
The Union Gospel Tabernacle opened in 1893 and later became known as the Ryman Auditorium, after the Rev. Sam Jones asked attendees of Tom Ryman’s 1904 funeral to stand if they agreed that the building should be named for its visionary. Thousands rose to their feet.
Over the years, the Ryman has hosted Teddy Roosevelt, John Phillip Sousa, Marian Anderson, Bob Hope and many others. It was the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974.
Today, the Opry plays at the Ryman seasonally, and the rock, pop and country acts that also perform there consider the Ryman hallowed ground.
David Ewing is a ninth generation Nashvillian. He practices law at Rudy, Wood & Winstead and can be reached at dewing@rudylaw.net
http://nashvillecitypaper.com/content/city-voices/ewing-higher-ground
In the beginning, Captain Tom Ryman was a boozer, a bettor and a man a few steps short of God.
Ryman owned a fleet of riverboats that mainly transported goods and whiskey on the Cumberland River. His steamers also provided first-class travel in the area. Ryman served the finest food, distilled water and alcohol on board.
In 1884, Ryman made a large bet that Grover Cleveland would win the presidential election. Ryman was influenced by local gamblers to continue to bet on this 1884 election, and he couldn’t say no as more bets arrived.
By election time, Ryman had waged his entire fortune — including his stately house on the hill near the Cumberland River.
Fortunately for Ryman and the city of Nashville, Grover Cleveland won the presidency. And Ryman, who would later reflect that he had spent “a good part of his life serving the devil,” would put his money to good use.
In 1885, a traveling minister stopped in Nashville for a series of sermons and tent revivals. Ryman and his rowdy friends were part of the thousands in attendance under a big tent downtown. Ryman was present not to listen to the sermon but to heckle and mock.
But instead of disrupting the service, he found himself moved by the words, and he converted to Christianity. He thought it was unfortunate that Nashville did not have a large permanent place for preachers of the gospel, and so he decided to build such a facility.
To show he was a changed man post-conversion, Ryman went down to the dock where his boats were, reduced all the bars on his ships to kindling, and dumped gallons of whiskey from his steamboats into the Cumberland River. He painted Bible quotations where the bars once were.
Ryman selected a site on Fifth Avenue, a few blocks from his office overlooking the Cumberland, for his new building. In his report to donors, Ryman said, “this building is an ornament, not only to the city, but to the state, and when completed as it should be it will certainly be a pride to all of us.”
Ryman hired Nashville’s most famous architect, W.C. Smith — later the architect of Nashville’s Parthenon. He wanted the new building to hold large audiences indoors, where all citizens regardless of social class or religious affiliation could hear the gospel. The new hall would also become the largest convention facility in the South, seating more than 6,000 people.
When the Gospel Tabernacle was near completion in 1892, Ryman was disappointed. He remarked on the “unfinished and crude state of the interior, which at present is provided with only rough seats, and the walls are undressed.” Interestingly, the exposed walls and wooden church pews are now part of the character of the world-famous auditorium.
Desperate to raise the money needed, Ryman spent $25 for names and addresses of 5,000 millionaires. He paid another $110 for postage and mailing to ask these people for money. The millionaire campaign failed, and Ryman changed architects a month later, selecting Hugh C. Thompson, who designed the famous brick gothic structure with the soaring roofline.
The Union Gospel Tabernacle opened in 1893 and later became known as the Ryman Auditorium, after the Rev. Sam Jones asked attendees of Tom Ryman’s 1904 funeral to stand if they agreed that the building should be named for its visionary. Thousands rose to their feet.
Over the years, the Ryman has hosted Teddy Roosevelt, John Phillip Sousa, Marian Anderson, Bob Hope and many others. It was the home of the Grand Ole Opry from 1943 to 1974.
Today, the Opry plays at the Ryman seasonally, and the rock, pop and country acts that also perform there consider the Ryman hallowed ground.
David Ewing is a ninth generation Nashvillian. He practices law at Rudy, Wood & Winstead and can be reached at dewing@rudylaw.net
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Obama Orders Dance Classes, Movie Nights, and Bingo for Illegal Detainees
Let’s see now. Americans are having difficulty in keeping employed due to a recession and many are finding it difficult to find jobs, to pay monthly house or rent payments, to make car payments, to keep food for their families on the table, and of course to pay their over burdened taxes, and many other necessities. Need worry for illegal immigrants. President Obama will “take care of these illegals”.
The first criminal activity for illegal immigrants is to falsify and/or purchase a counterfeit identification such as a Social Security Card, driver’s license, etc. These purchased and/or otherwise fictitious documents are stolen records, often on living American taxpayers. Illegal immigrants pilfer from the taxpayers as they receive Medicaid, food, education, and other benefits. Many illegal immigrants bring illegal drugs, and other criminal activity. An overwhelming number of arrested illegal immigrants are repeat criminals.
Regardless of all the illegal activity, Obama takes care of all his own illegal immigrants and their activity. Oscar Y. Harward
Chris Banescu
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/obama_orders_dance_classes_mov.html
The Houston Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department to implement multiple modifications to their facilities to make life easier, more comfortable, and pleasant for the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants (approximately 400,000) it detains annually. An internal ICE email highlights 28 different changes the organization will have to make to soften the look of its facilities, present a friendlier environment, offer better entertainment, organize fun activities, and provide illegal immigrant detainees with free access to email and phone services, as well as better dining and training classes.
According to ICE officials all of these changes are part of broader efforts supported by Obama "to make the immigration detention system less penal and more humane." In reality, these changes are akin to "creating an all-inclusive resort for immigration detainees."
Some of the changes the White House is ordering include:
• § dance classes
• § movie nights
• § art classes
• § cooking classes
• § tutoring and computer training
• § free and unmonitored phone service
• § free email access
• § bingo
• § arts and crafts
• § more variety in dining options
• § self-serve beverage stations
• § fresh vegetable bars
• § fresh carrot sticks
• § hanging plants
• § recreation in natural setting
• § robust aerobic exercise
Also, ICE is expected to eliminate pat-down searches, lockdowns, and light-out for low-risk detainees, as well as provide vastly expanded visitation rights (up to 12 hours per visit) in its facilities.
The changes listed in the ICE e-mail are planned for nine different detention centers owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) across the country. According to the Chronicle, some of the changes "will be implemented within 30 days; others may take up to six months"
Illegal immigrant advocates are thrilled at the required changes. They have been advocating these transformations for years. Lory Rosenberg, policy and advocacy director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights for Amnesty International was delighted with the promised improvements: "Many of these points are very important to changing the system from a penal system, which is inappropriate in an immigration context, to a civil detention system."
However, ICE union leaders are appalled at the cavalier attitude towards the illegal immigrants they oversee and warn of the inherent dangers of such misguided policies. The officials are concerned the mandates will jeopardize the safety of their guards and agents, increase the potential for harm to other detainees, and cost the taxpayers more money in order to transform detention centers into an "all-inclusive resort" for immigration detainees.
"Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt," he said, taking particular issue with plans to relax restrictions on the movement of low-risk detainees and efforts to reduce and eliminate pat-down searches.
ICE leadership also expressed concerns about safety issues inherent in lowering security standards for almost half million detainees, many of which are violent and have gang affiliations. Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston explains:
some detainees may be classified as low-risk because they have no serious criminal history but still may be gang members that "haven't been caught doing anything wrong yet."
He also said eliminating lockdowns will make it more difficult to protect detainees from one another.
He said reducing or eliminating pat-down searches could allow contraband into the facilities, including weapons.
These concerns are justified. According to ICE's own report, as of September 9, 2009, 51% of the detained aliens were felons and 11% of the illegals had committed violent crimes. The report confirms that most common crimes committed by criminal aliens are those involving dangerous drugs, traffic offenses, simple assault, and larceny.
None of this matters to the ivory-tower elitist Obama. He condemned the people of Arizona for passing the SB1070 law that mirrors the US federal law on immigration calling it "misguided" and "irresponsible." He has refused to listen to the American people, 73% of whom agree with Arizona and its stance on illegal immigration. He stood beside Mexican president Felipe Calderon as he bashed Arizona and its people. He then applauded Calderon's defamation of America, while Democrats in Congress cheered and shouted their approval. He has refused to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders. He has continued to push for amnesty while a vast majority of the American people are against it.
President Obama wants millions more voters who support his radical leftist ideals. Pandering to illegal immigrants, blaming America, and continually playing the racist card is how he can get there. This is the Democrat's best chance to overwhelm the American electorate and they're going for it. Damn the American people, full amnesty ahead!
The first criminal activity for illegal immigrants is to falsify and/or purchase a counterfeit identification such as a Social Security Card, driver’s license, etc. These purchased and/or otherwise fictitious documents are stolen records, often on living American taxpayers. Illegal immigrants pilfer from the taxpayers as they receive Medicaid, food, education, and other benefits. Many illegal immigrants bring illegal drugs, and other criminal activity. An overwhelming number of arrested illegal immigrants are repeat criminals.
Regardless of all the illegal activity, Obama takes care of all his own illegal immigrants and their activity. Oscar Y. Harward
Chris Banescu
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/obama_orders_dance_classes_mov.html
The Houston Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department to implement multiple modifications to their facilities to make life easier, more comfortable, and pleasant for the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants (approximately 400,000) it detains annually. An internal ICE email highlights 28 different changes the organization will have to make to soften the look of its facilities, present a friendlier environment, offer better entertainment, organize fun activities, and provide illegal immigrant detainees with free access to email and phone services, as well as better dining and training classes.
According to ICE officials all of these changes are part of broader efforts supported by Obama "to make the immigration detention system less penal and more humane." In reality, these changes are akin to "creating an all-inclusive resort for immigration detainees."
Some of the changes the White House is ordering include:
• § dance classes
• § movie nights
• § art classes
• § cooking classes
• § tutoring and computer training
• § free and unmonitored phone service
• § free email access
• § bingo
• § arts and crafts
• § more variety in dining options
• § self-serve beverage stations
• § fresh vegetable bars
• § fresh carrot sticks
• § hanging plants
• § recreation in natural setting
• § robust aerobic exercise
Also, ICE is expected to eliminate pat-down searches, lockdowns, and light-out for low-risk detainees, as well as provide vastly expanded visitation rights (up to 12 hours per visit) in its facilities.
The changes listed in the ICE e-mail are planned for nine different detention centers owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) across the country. According to the Chronicle, some of the changes "will be implemented within 30 days; others may take up to six months"
Illegal immigrant advocates are thrilled at the required changes. They have been advocating these transformations for years. Lory Rosenberg, policy and advocacy director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights for Amnesty International was delighted with the promised improvements: "Many of these points are very important to changing the system from a penal system, which is inappropriate in an immigration context, to a civil detention system."
However, ICE union leaders are appalled at the cavalier attitude towards the illegal immigrants they oversee and warn of the inherent dangers of such misguided policies. The officials are concerned the mandates will jeopardize the safety of their guards and agents, increase the potential for harm to other detainees, and cost the taxpayers more money in order to transform detention centers into an "all-inclusive resort" for immigration detainees.
"Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt," he said, taking particular issue with plans to relax restrictions on the movement of low-risk detainees and efforts to reduce and eliminate pat-down searches.
ICE leadership also expressed concerns about safety issues inherent in lowering security standards for almost half million detainees, many of which are violent and have gang affiliations. Tre Rebstock, president for Local 3332, the ICE union in Houston explains:
some detainees may be classified as low-risk because they have no serious criminal history but still may be gang members that "haven't been caught doing anything wrong yet."
He also said eliminating lockdowns will make it more difficult to protect detainees from one another.
He said reducing or eliminating pat-down searches could allow contraband into the facilities, including weapons.
These concerns are justified. According to ICE's own report, as of September 9, 2009, 51% of the detained aliens were felons and 11% of the illegals had committed violent crimes. The report confirms that most common crimes committed by criminal aliens are those involving dangerous drugs, traffic offenses, simple assault, and larceny.
None of this matters to the ivory-tower elitist Obama. He condemned the people of Arizona for passing the SB1070 law that mirrors the US federal law on immigration calling it "misguided" and "irresponsible." He has refused to listen to the American people, 73% of whom agree with Arizona and its stance on illegal immigration. He stood beside Mexican president Felipe Calderon as he bashed Arizona and its people. He then applauded Calderon's defamation of America, while Democrats in Congress cheered and shouted their approval. He has refused to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders. He has continued to push for amnesty while a vast majority of the American people are against it.
President Obama wants millions more voters who support his radical leftist ideals. Pandering to illegal immigrants, blaming America, and continually playing the racist card is how he can get there. This is the Democrat's best chance to overwhelm the American electorate and they're going for it. Damn the American people, full amnesty ahead!
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