Tuesday, June 30, 2009

THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA THINK BARNEY FRANK IS THE SMARTEST GUY IN CONGRESS; THEY LAUGH AT HIS JOKES AS THEY FAIL TO DO THEIR JOB

Rep. Frank: 'Rolling the dice' once again on mortgage lending.

Media:
They laugh at his jokes.
They say he's the smartest guy in Congress.
And 90% of them agree with him politically.
Small wonder the havoc Barney Frank wreaks on the economy gets so little attention.

America has its share of problems,
to be sure.
But one of the most pernicious is the bias that permeates the media.
We've been saying this for years,
noting how it leads to half-covered issues, an ill-informed populace
and wretched legislation that dogs us for decades.

Never, however,
has it been as pervasive as now.
Yes, the fact that the media are head over heels for our new president
has made the favoritism more obvious.

When a major TV network like ABC,
whose employees gave 80 times as much in financial contributions
to Obama's presidential campaign as they gave to his opponent's,
lets the president commandeer its news programming
to tout a plan to take over the health care industry,
it's hard not to notice.

But it goes much deeper than Barack Obama.
It also involves Rep. Frank and other politicians
who are in large part responsible for the financial meltdown
that led to the economic disaster from which we continue to suffer.

How we got into this,
the worst economic fix since the Great Depression,
is the most monumental question of our time.
Yet despite the information that we and other non-mainstream media have put out, people still haven't connected the dots.

This was driven home again last week,
when it was disclosed that Frank,
who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee,
wants standards for mortgages on new condominiums to be relaxed.

Seems the rules have been tightened
to limit the exposure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
the two government-sponsored agencies that buy most of the mortgages in America. Frank reportedly believes they're "too onerous."

Frank's suggestion has gotten little press.
Where it has been covered, little has been made of the fact that the congressman
was a key backer of the lax rules that prevailed i
n the Fannie- and Freddie-backed subprime loan fiasco
that sank the U.S. housing market and global financial markets.

As we said last week,
Frank stood "athwart nearly all efforts to reform (Freddie and Fannie)
until it was too late."
Rather than run down that list again,
we refer readers to Thomas Sowell's latest book,
"The Housing Boom and Bust."

One of America's best economists and thinkers,
Sowell in 148 pages chronicles this economic catastrophe f
rom the passage in 1977 of the Community Reinvestment Act,
which directed regulators to encourage financial institutions to "meet the credit needs of the local communities."

It goes through the 1990s, when the CRA was revised to
pressure banks into relaxing lending standards for low-income borrowers and
push Fannie and Freddie to buy subprime loans and subprime securities to meet "affirmative action" quotas.

Sowell's book also covers the efforts by Frank and others this decade to defend the tottering system and block moves to head off disaster.

Of the many comments by Frank
that Sowell quotes is this from 2003:
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role
in helping make housing more affordable.
(Critics) exaggerate a threat of safety" and "conjure up the possibility
of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see."

Since then,
the U.S. Treasury has been forced to bail out
the financial system and two major car companies to the tune of $700 billion
and counting.
As for Fannie and Freddie, they're in government receivership after adding $238 billion to the nation's debt to bolster their shaky finances.

Yet back in 2003, Sowell notes,
Frank was arguing that the federal government had "probably done too little rather than too much to push (Fannie and Freddie) to meet the goals of affordable housing."

Sowell quoting Frank:
"I would like Fannie and Freddie more deeply into helping low-income housing and possibly moving into something that is more explicitly a subsidy.
I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation."

Now Frank is back at the craps table,
pushing for another relaxation of Fannie and Freddie loan standards.
Yet the media, which seem oblivious to the history of the housing meltdown, apparently see no connection.

The same media,
by the way, were just as passive Tuesday when Acorn,
the "community group" that Obama once served as legal counsel,
held demonstrations at the offices in 15 cities of four mortgage lenders that haven't signed on
to the president's voluntary
"Making Home Affordable" foreclosure-avoidance program.

Such demonstrations wouldn't be that newsworthy
if it weren't for the fact that Acorn also played a key role
in the subprime mortgage crisis by strong-arming banks into making loans
they shouldn't have.
Here it's trying to intimidate lenders once again.
Once again, the media apparently see nothing of note.

Until they make the connection,
the public at large will never realize it was Big Government,
with its horribly conceived and executed programs,
that created the mess in which we find ourselves.
And it'll be the public at large that will continue to suffer the devastation
of future programs —
whether they target housing, banking, energy or health care.
---
THE PRICE OF MEDIA MALPRACTICE
EDITORIAL
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Tuesday
June 30, 2009

*************************************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens


LESBIANS, GAYS, BISEXUALS AND TRANSGENEDERED CELEBRITIES CELEBRATE WITH BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AND MICHELLE IN THE WHITE HOUSE



ABBA's "Dancing Queen" filled the East Room,
as more than 200 prominent gays and lesbians gathered
for the first ever celebration of Pride month at the White House.
The President and First Lady entered
to thunderous applause.
President Obama told the group he is committed
to equality for their community.

"This struggle continues today,
for even as we face extraordinary challenges
as a nation,
we cannot and will not put aside issues of basic equality,"
he said,
"We seek an America in which no one feels the pain of discrimination based on who you
are or who you love."

Many gay and lesbians
believe the President has been slow to act on major issues like the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy,
and the Defense of Marriage Act. T
he President asked the group to focus on what has been accomplished so far.

"I know that many in this room don't believe
that progress has come fast enough,
and I understand that," he said,
"But I say this: We have made progress. And we will make more."

The President spoke about
his recently signed memorandum, guaranteeing benefits to same sex partners of federal workers.
While those include benefits like relocation and emergency evacuation -
health care, retirement and survivor benefits are left out.

"There are unjust laws to overturn
and unfair practices to stop,"
Mr. Obama said.
Among those, the President said,
the Defense of Marriage Act.
Mr. Obama also said he has called on Congress to a domestic partners law,
which would guarantee a range of benefits, most notably healthcare, to same sex couples.
The President also vowed to pass a hate crimes bill that would include protections for gays and lesbians,
and said the bill will be named for Matthew Shepard.
The gay University of Wyoming student,
whose parents were in the audience today,
was tortured and killed near Laramie in 1998.
His attackers were not charged with a hate crime.
The President also said he is committed to ending the ban on entry to the U.S. based on HIV status.

As to Don't Ask, Don't Tell,
the President said he believes the policy works against America's national security.

"My administration is already working with the Pentagon
and members of the House and the Senate
on how we'll go about ending this policy,
which will require an act of Congress,"
he said.
"I've asked the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop a plan for how to thoroughly implement a repeal."

Still, the President said government can only do so much. "Even as we take these steps, we must recognize that real progress depends not only on the laws we change, but, as I said before, on the hearts we open," he said.

He ended his speech with a promise to champion their cause in the days to come.

"I want you to know that, in this task, I will not only be your friend; I will continue to be an ally and a champion and a president who fights with you and for you," he said.
---
Political Punch
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper
Political coverage and musings on pop culture from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper and the ABC News White House team.
POTUS to LGBT: "Welcome to Your White House"
June 29, 2009
Yunjiblog ABC News'
Yunji de Nies reports

*************************************************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens



Monday, June 29, 2009

THE RICCI DECISION SHOULD HAVE BEEN UNANIMOUS, BUT THE LEFT-LIBERALS VOTED FOR RACISM


This Sept. 2007 photo
released by the PenWell Corporation publication
"Fire Engineering"
shows New Haven, Conn., firefighter Frank Ricci
during testing of fire fighting equipment.
(AP Photo/Fire Engineering, Keith Muratori)

*****************

The Supreme Court ruled Monday
that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn.,
were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee
Sonia Sotomayor
endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam
because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision.
The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

Kennedy's opinion made only passing reference to the work of Sotomayor and the other two judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who upheld a lower court ruling in favor of New Haven.

But the appellate judges have been criticized for producing a cursory opinion that failed to deal with "indisputably complex and far from well-settled" questions, in the words of another appeals court judge, Sotomayor mentor Jose Cabranes.

"This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal," Cabranes said, in a dissent from the full 2nd Circuit's decision not to hear the case.

Monday's decision has its origins in New Haven's need to fill vacancies for lieutenants and captains in its fire department. It hired an outside firm to design a test, which was given to 77 candidates for lieutenant and 41 candidates for captain.

Fifty six firefighters passed the exams, including 41 whites, 22 blacks and 18 Hispanics. But of those, only 17 whites and two Hispanics could expect promotion.

The city eventually decided not to use the exam to determine promotions. It said it acted because it might have been vulnerable to claims that the exam had a "disparate impact" on minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The white firefighters said the decision violated the same law's prohibition on intentional discrimination.

Kennedy said an employer needs a "strong basis in evidence" to believe it will be held liable in a disparate impact lawsuit. New Haven had no such evidence, he said.

The city declined to validate the test after it was given, a step that could have identified flaws or determined that there were no serious problems with it. In addition, city officials could not say what was wrong with the test, other than the racially skewed results.

"The city could be liable for disparate-impact discrimination only if the examinations were not job related" or the city failed to use a less discriminatory alternative, Kennedy said. "We conclude that there is no strong basis in evidence to establish that the test was deficient in either of these respects."

But Ginsburg said the court should have assessed "the starkly disparate results" of the exams against the backdrop of historical and ongoing inequality in the New Haven fire department. As of 2003, she said, only one of the city's 21 fire captains was African-American.

Until this decision, Ginsburg said, the civil rights law's prohibitions on intentional discrimination and disparate impact were complementary, both aimed at ending workplace discrimination.

"Today's decision sets these paired directives at odds," she said.

------------

Supreme Court Overturns Sotomayor’s Ruling in Firefighters’ Reverse Discrimination Case
Monday, June 29, 2009
By Mark Sherman, Associated Press

Viewer Comments
The following comments are posted by our readers and are not necessarily the opinions of either CNSNews.com or the story’s author.


Folks, While I cannot contain my elation that FINALLY this case was reviewed on its merit and that the firefighters will FINALLY receive the benefit that they deserve. I would highly recommend that they fight for back pay and allowances that they would have received if they were promoted when they should have been. HOWEVER, HERE IS THE REAL STORY behind this EXCELLENT story: This was overturned by a 5-4 majority when in fact it should have been 9-0 on its merit. What that says is that we are ONLY 1 or 2 more votes away from complete TYRANNY: Liberal White House; Liberal Congress; Liberal Court. PRAY that another Justice does NOT leave the court before the 2010 election when We The People will be able to THROW THE LOT of LIBERALS THE HELL OUT!
IQ 168 (5 hours ago)

I was a human resources practitioner in the U.S.S.A. from 1974 through 1996 when I moved to Europe. I lived through the California 1980s Bakke decision (which institutionalized reverse discrimination against white males). This is 30 years too late - but perhaps will do something to return justice and equality to the workplace. Perhaps, after 30 years, people wil be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin and/or their ***. Reset the discrimination and keep justice coming.
yumadlh (6 hours ago)

This bill was not read by anyone before it was voted on because it had not been printed. The same is going to be with the Healthcare bill. This house of crooks are killing the economy by thinking of the next election and the citizens be damned. Tax. Tax. Tax. Spend. Spend. Spend. The CZARs are in control. The unelected rulers. No accountability or oversight.

***********

Four Justices Unable To See Beyond Race

By GEORGE F. WILL | Posted Monday, June 29, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Although New Haven's firefighters deservedly won in the Supreme Court, it is deeply depressing that they won narrowly — 5-4.

The egregious behavior by that city's government, in a context of racial rabble-rousing, did not seem legally suspect to even one of the court's four liberals, whose harmony seemed to reflect result-oriented rather than law-driven reasoning.

The undisputed facts are that in 2003 the city gave promotion exams to 118 firemen, 27 of them black. The tests were prepared by a firm specializing in employment exams and were validated, as federal law requires, by independent experts.

When none of the African-Americans did well enough to qualify for the available promotions, a black minister allied with the seven-term mayor warned of a dire "political ramification" if the city promoted from the list of persons (including one Hispanic) that the exams identified as qualified.

The city decided that no one would be promoted, calling this a race-neutral outcome because no group was disadvantaged more than any other.

The city's idea of equal treatment — denying promotions equally to those deemed and those not deemed qualified — was particularly galling to Frank Ricci, who had prepared for the exams by quitting his second job, buying the more than $1,000 worth of books the city recommended, paying to have them read onto audiotapes — he is dyslexic — and taking practice tests and interviews. His efforts earned him the sixth-highest score.

He and others denied promotions for which their exam scores made them eligible sued, charging violations of the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws and of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The city argued that if it had made promotions based on the test results, it would have been vulnerable under the 1964 act to being sued for adopting a practice that had a "disparate impact" on minorities.

On Monday, the court's conservatives (Anthony Kennedy writing for the majority, joined by John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito) held:

The rights of Ricci et al. under the 1964 act were violated. The city's fear of a disparate impact litigation was not unfounded, but that did not justify the race-based response to the exam results because New Haven did not have "a strong basis in evidence" to believe it would be held liable.

There is such evidence only if the exams "were not job related and consistent with business necessity, or if there existed an equally valid, less discriminatory alternative" that would have served the city's needs but that it refused to adopt.

"All the evidence demonstrates that the city rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white." The city's criticisms of the exam "are blatantly contradicted by the record." And "the city turned a blind eye to evidence supporting the exams' validity" (emphases added).

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined in dissent by John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer, rejected the majority's conclusions root and branch. She cited a federal report from the early 1970s about discrimination in hiring firefighters, disputed even the "business necessity" of the exams' 60/40 written-oral ratio and defended the integrity of New Haven's decision-making — rejecting Alito's concurrence, which dwelt on the rancid racial politics of the Rev. Boise Kimber.

Alito concluded that "no reasonable jury" could find that the city possessed a "substantial basis in evidence to find the tests inadequate."

Scalia, concurring separately, said Monday's ruling "merely postpones the evil day" on which the court must decide "whether, or to what extent," existing disparate-impact law conflicts with the 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection of the law.

Conceding that "the question is not an easy one," Scalia said:

The federal government is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, so surely "it is also prohibited from enacting laws mandating that third parties" — e.g., a city government — "discriminate on the basis of race."

Scalia added:

"Would a private employer not be guilty of unlawful discrimination if he refrained from establishing a racial hiring quota but intentionally designed his hiring practices to achieve the same end? Surely he would. Intentional discrimination is still occurring, just one step up the chain."

The nation shall slog on, litigating through a fog of euphemisms and blurry categories (e.g., "race-conscious" actions that somehow are not racial discrimination because they "remedy" discrimination that no one has intended). This is the predictable price of failing to simply insist that government cannot take cognizance of race.

© 2008 Washington Post Writers Group

*************

SO MUCH FOR WISE LATINAS
by Ann Coulter
July 01, 2009
WorldNetDaily.com

With the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week,
we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor
is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

To recap the famous Ricci case, in 2003, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a firefighters' test – which had been expressly designed to be race-neutral – because only whites and Hispanics scored high enough to receive immediate promotions, whereas blacks who took the test did well enough only to be eligible for promotions down the line.

Inasmuch as the high-scoring white and Hispanic firemen were denied promotions solely because of their race, they sued the city for race discrimination.

Obama's Justice-designate Sotomayor threw out their lawsuit in a sneaky, unsigned opinion – the judicial equivalent of "talk to the hand." She upheld the city's race discrimination against white and Hispanic firemen on the grounds that the test had a "disparate impact" on blacks, meaning that it failed to promote some magical percentage of blacks.

This strict quota regime was dressed up by the city – and by Sotomayor's opinion – as a reasonable reaction to the threat of lawsuits by blacks who were not promoted.

That's a complicated way of saying: Racial quotas are peachy.

According to Sotomayor, any test that gets the numbers wrong – whatever "wrong" means in any given context of professions, populations, applicants, workers, etc. – is grounds for a lawsuit, which in turn, is grounds for an employer to engage in race discrimination against disfavored racial groups, such as white men.

KKK's first targets were Republicans – read how Democrats started group in "Setting the Record Straight: American History in Black & White"

Consequently, the only legal avenue available to employers under Sotomayor's ruling is always to impose strict racial quotas in making hiring and promotion decisions.

Say, if the threat of a lawsuit permits the government to ignore the Constitution, can pro-lifers get New Haven to shut down all abortion clinics by threatening to sue them? There's no question but that abortion clinics have a "disparate impact" on black babies.

This week, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 for the white and Hispanic firefighters, overturning Sotomayor's endorsement of racial quotas.

But all nine justices rejected Sotomayor's holding that different test results alone give the government a green light to engage in race discrimination. Even Justice Ginsburg's opinion for the dissent clearly stated that "an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone."

Indeed, the dissenters argued that the case should be returned to the lower courts to look for some hidden racial bias in the test. For Sotomayor, the results alone proved racial bias.

The one advantage Sotomayor's talk-to-the-hand opinion has over Justice Ginsburg's prolix dissent is that brevity prevented Sotomayor from having to explain why quotas aren't quotas.

That was left to Ginsburg.

Liberals desperately want race quotas – as long as quotas never come to their offices.

But they can't say that, so instead they talk in circles for 10 hours straight, until everyone else is exhausted, and then, when no one is paying attention, they announce: So we're all agreed – we will have racial quotas.

Based on her lifetime of experience working as a firefighter, Ginsburg said: "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least." Liberals prefer a more objective test, such as race.

Isn't excelling on written tests how Ruth Bader Ginsburg got where she is? It's curious how people whose entire careers are based on doing well on tests find them so irrelevant to other people's jobs.

In the middle of a fire, it can either be a great idea or the worst possible idea to open a door. An excellent method for finding out if your next fire chief knows the correct answer is a written test.

Unleashing the canard of all race-obsessed liberals, Ginsburg observed that courts have found that a fire officer's job "involves complex behaviors, good interpersonal skills, the ability to make decisions under tremendous pressure, and a host of other abilities – none of which is easily measured by a written, multiple choice test."


So does a lawyer's job. And yet attorneys with absolutely no "interpersonal skills" get cushy jobs and extravagant salaries on the basis of their commendable performance on all manner of written tests, from multiple choice LSATs and bar exams to written law school exams.

I note that Ginsburg has not shown any particular interest in rectifying the "disparate impact" of legal exams: She never hired a single black law clerk out of the dozens she employed in more than a decade as an appeals court judge. (Her hiring practices on the Supreme Court are a state secret, but I can state with supreme certainty that her clerks do not reflect the racial mix of Washington, D.C.)

But liberals think other people's jobs are a joke, so the testing must also be a joke. That is – other than their preferred test: "Is the applicant black, female or otherwise handicapped?"

There is no test that can prove all things about an employee and so there is no test that can't be derided by the race-mongers. Which is exactly the point. Get rid of all tests – except for lawyers who graduated at the top of their law school classes at Columbia, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Then liberals are free to impose racial quotas on other people's jobs without limit.

As crazy as this is, even Ginsburg and the other dissenters made a big point of pretending there was some flaw in this particular test. None adopted Sotomayor's position that unequal test results alone prove discrimination.

This suggests that a wise Jewess, due to the richness of her life experiences, might come to a better judgment than a Latina judge would.


************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens













CCCCC

DO WE REALLY NEED OBAMA'S BIG-BANG-HEALTH-CARE REFORM AT ALL?



"Why do we need President Obama's big-bang health-care reform at all?
What's the real agenda here?
If it's really to cover the truly uninsured,
a much cheaper, targeted, small-ball approach would do the trick.
But on the other hand, maybe the real goal is a larger, ultra-liberal plan aimed at a government takeover of the U.S. health system. ...
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, we don't have 47 million folks who are truly uninsured. When you take out college kids
plus those earning $75,000 or more who choose not to sign up for a health-care plan,
roughly 20 million people are removed from the list of uninsured.
After that, you can remove the 10 million who are not U.S. citizens
and the 11 million who are eligible for SCHIP and Medicaid
but for some reason have not signed up for those programs.
So that leaves only 10 million to 15 million people among the long-term uninsured.
Yes, they need help.
And yes, they should get it.
But not with mandatory universal coverage,
or new government-backed insurance plans, or massive tax increases.
And certainly not with the Canadian-European-style nationalization
that has always been the true goal of the Obama administration
and congressional Democrats.
Instead, we can give the truly uninsured vouchers or debit cards
that will allow for choice and coverage,
and even health savings accounts for retirement wealth. ...
Knocking down profits and telling people what to do
because government planners know best, right?
Wrong.

Absolutely wrong."

--economist Lawrence Kudlow


**********************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens


OBAMA IS COMFORTABLE WITH HATE SPEECH SPEAKER HARRY KNOX WHOM HE APPOINTED TO HIS ADVISORY COUNCIL ON FAITH

Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

Harry Knox, a member of President Obama's administration,

recently appointed to

the President's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships

IS GUILTY OF HATE SPEECH!

Harry Knox is an anti-Catholic bigot.

He has chosen to live a lifestyle described by the Church as "disordered" and by the Bible as an "abomination."

Thus, Mr. Knox has taken it upon himself to lecture an organization that has brought the Good News of salvation to the world and saved civilization for over 2000 years and to criticize the Bible because he disagrees with the scriptures on homosexuality.

He has publicly referred to Pope Benedict XVI, one of the most highly respected theologians and religious leaders in the world, as a "discredited leader" and the Knights of Columbus, one of the largest charitable organizations in the world, as a "discredited army of oppression." He has accused the Pope of "harming people in the name of Jesus" because of the Pope's comments suggesting that condoms increase the spread of AIDS.

Dr. Green of Harvard University, researchers at the University of California, and an article in the British medical journal, "The Lancet," among others have agreed with the Pope that condoms have not been effective in the reduction of AIDS. The President of Uganda, the only country in Africa that has seem major reductions in AIDS cases, has confirmed that the major reduction in AIDS in that country were the result of programs promoting abstinence and fidelity, not condoms. In other words, the Pope was right.

When the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Right, CNS News, and a group of 20 prominent conservative Catholics and congressmen called on the President to remove Harry Knox from the faith-based council, the answer they received from a White House spokesperson was that the President is comfortable with the Advisory Council.

Would President Obama be comfortable with a racist, an anti-Semite, or a member of the KKK on the council or is anti-Catholicism the only bigotry that is acceptable? What kind of advice can a bigot give to a faith-based council? Do homosexual activists get a pass on "hate speech" while the rest of us are silenced?

Harry Knox must be removed from the council now!
---

CCI statement on the Obama appointment of anti-Catholic Harry Knox to the President's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships
6/22/2009 8:00:00 PM -CCI

BY: Mary Anne Hackett. President of Catholic Citizens of Illinois, a Roman Catholic lay organization.

**************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens



Sunday, June 28, 2009

WITH OBAMACARE, CANADIANS WILL HAVE TO START GOING TO COSTA RICA TO GET EMERGENCY MEDICAL CARE INSTEAD OF THE UNITED STATES

Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

Chappaquidick Replay

-------

Somewhere in America Alone,

I cite an example of the logical reductio of socialized health care:

"the ten-month wait for the maternity ward".

I've been adding to the file ever since.

Here's the latest entry, from Hamilton, Ontario:

Hamilton's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) was full

when Ava Isabella Stinson was born 14 weeks premature at St. Joseph's Hospital Thursday at 12:24 p.m.

A provincewide search for an open NICU bed came up empty,

leaving no choice but to send the two-pound, four-ounce preemie to Buffalo that evening.

Well, it would be unreasonable to expect Hamilton,

a city of half-a-million people just down the road from Canada's largest city

(Greater Toronto Area, five-and-a-half million)

in the most densely populated part of Canada's most populous province

(Ontario, 13 million people)

to be able to offer the same level of neonatal care as Buffalo,

a post-industrial ruin in steep population decline for half-a-century.

But wait!

The fun and games are only just beginning.

When a decrepit and incompetent Canadian health bureaucracy

meets a boneheaded and inhuman American border "security" bureaucracy,

you'll be getting a birth experience you'll treasure forever:

Her parents, Natalie Paquette and Richard Stinson,

couldn't follow their baby because

as of June 1, a passport is required to cross the border into the United States.

They're having to approve medical procedures over the phone and are terrified something

will happen to their baby before they get there.

Once Buffalo enjoys the benefits of Hamilton-level health care,

I wonder where Ontario will be shipping the preemies to. Costa Rica?

We now return you to your 24/7 Michael Jackson coverage...

---

CONGRATULATIONS, IT'S A.......

CROSS BORDER INCIDENT!

by Mark Steyn

The Corner

THE NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE

SUNDAY

28 JUNE 09

*********************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens


Saturday, June 27, 2009

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, MD, PSYCHIATRIST, PUNDIT, ANALYSIZES BARRY SOETORO AKA BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AND THE ANALYSIS IS SCARY

Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

OVER ON
<http://timetorevoltamerica.blogspot.com/>
MAD MOM
GIVES A SUMMARY OF
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER'S
SPEECH AT
THE CENTER FOR THE AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

---

Friday, June 26, 2009

Charles Krauthammer Speech

Subject: KRAUTHAMMER SPEECH SUMMARY

Last Monday was a profound evening hearing Dr. Charles Krauthammer speak to the Center for the American Experiment. He is a brilliant intellectual, seasoned & articulate. He is forthright & careful in his analysis; news resorts to emotions or personal insults. He is NOT a fear monger nor an extremist in his comments & views. He is a fiscal conservative & has a Pulitzer prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News & writes weekly for the Washington Post. The entire room was held spellbound during his talk. I have shared this w/many of you & several have asked me to summarize his comments, as we are living in uncharted waters economically and internationally. Even two Dems at my table agreed w/everything he said!


A summary of his comments:

1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a 'cool customer' who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's 'behind the mask'. Taking down the Clinton dynasty by a political neophyte was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time.

2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan & Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing w/ your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attn. to what he SAYS; rather, watch what he DOES!

3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, & wants to 'level the playing field' w/income redistribution & punishment of the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada.

4. His 3 main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, & NAT'L HEALTHCARE by the Fed. govt. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap & trade will add costs to everything & stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is healthcare program, because if you make it FREE& add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go thru the roof. The only way to control costs is w/ massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada. God forbid.

5. He's surrounded himself w/mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever run even a candy store. But they're going to try to run the auto, financial, banking & other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama's not a socialist; rather a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says.

6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the USA, more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries & their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany & England was a prime example of how he sees America, as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the 1st President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies!

7. He's now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (& pain) will not 'come due' until after he's reelected in 2012. He'd like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, & hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego; Mr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist.

8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. We're 'pining' for another Reagan, but there'll never be another like him. He believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in Feb.) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere & intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts & info if she's to be a serious candidate in the future. We need to return to the party of lower taxes smaller govt., personal responsibility, strong Nat'l defense, & states' rights.

9. The current level of spending is irresponsible & outrageous. We're spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid & Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda. But eventually the bill will come due & people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus pkg. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions & the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above.

10. The election was over in mid-Sept. when Lehman brothers failed. Fear & panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, demonized by the media, & the war was grinding on indefinitely w/o a clear outcome. The people are in pain & the mantra of 'change' caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was.

11. In 2010 and 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it'll be a dogfight. It'll all be about the economy.

I hope this gets you really thinking about what's happening in Washington & Congress. There's a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer & he encourages us to keep the faith & join the loyal resistance. The work will be hard, but we're right on most issues & can reclaim our country, before it's far too late. Rick


******************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens



OBAMA'S KENYA BIRTH CERTIFICATE FOR SALE ON EBAY - THIS IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!!!!!!!!!

ESTIMATES OF OBAMA'S HEALTH PLAN EXCEED $1 TRILLION OVER 10 YEARS WITH NO PLANS ON HOW TO PAY FOR IT

Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

"Dependence begets subservience and venality,

suffocates the germ of virtue,

and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."

--Thomas Jefferson

"You just don't get it, do you, America?"

But Polls Say People Want Government Health Care...

The Leftmedia were in overdrive this week backing up their man Barack Obama on the issue of government health care. Before ABC even had the chance to broadcast a prime-time infomercial from the White House, The New York Times released a poll purporting to show that "Americans overwhelmingly support" health care changes, including that "most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and that they said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector." Try not to spew coffee on your keyboard. In the end, "72 percent of those questioned supported a government-administered insurance plan."

As we have noted before, this is nothing more than pollaganda -- the use of polling to drive public opinion -- especially when, in this case, the poll is stacked two to one with Obama voters. ABC employed plain old propaganda in its special newscast from the White House Wednesday -- "Prescription for America." Reporter David Wright opened the broadcast by saying, "Expectations are low, but the need is obvious." And given that ABC was reporting on our "broken system," it was not surprising that, when asked, all 164 handpicked audience members agreed that "change" is needed. Depends on the meaning of change... Then, for 45 minutes, President Obama took a break from running the banks and automakers to explain to Americans why he should run health care too. No wonder the newscast was dead last in the ratings.

Besides the overarching problem that any government plan is unconstitutional, details of the plan remain sketchy -- a cause for alarm. In fact, House Democrats released another plan just days ago. Notably, the House plan includes a government-run option that will "compete" with private insurers and use Medicare rates for paying health care providers. The plan also calls for stricter regulations for employers, including a mandate that they must either provide coverage or pay a tax of 8 percent of their payroll. However, small businesses would be exempt, and those who do provide coverage would receive tax credits.

Naturally, as details shift, so does the estimated cost. Most estimates are still north of $1 trillion over 10 years, though paying for the plan is not yet part of the plan.

One of Obama's key claims is that "you can keep your plan if you want to." What he means is that the government won't specifically mandate that anyone lose coverage, but the effect of his policies would be to cause many individuals to lose their benefits. America's Health Insurance Plans, the nation's largest trade group for health insurers, warned of "devastating consequences" from a government plan. In a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), the lead author of the health care bill, the group said that a public health insurance option "would dismantle employer-based coverage, significantly increase costs for those who remain in private coverage, and add additional liabilities to the federal budget." This is painfully obvious to us, but the power brokers in DC aren't interested in a market-based approach.

In fact, though Democrats claim that the government would compete on a "level playing field" with private insurers, Obama says his plan "is an important tool to discipline insurance companies." As Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute says, "The government can subsidize its plan with tax revenue from other taxpayers. The government can enact regulations that favor its plan over other private insurers."

Indeed, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) quipped, "Having the government compete against the private sector is kind of like my seven-year-old daughter's lemonade stand competing against McDonalds."

This Week's 'Alpha Jackass' Award

"Why would [a government plan] drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good deal, then why is it that the government, which they say can't run anything, suddenly is going to drive them out of business? That's not logical." --President Barack Obama

Cap and Tax Looms Large

In some measure, the present health care debate is a smokescreen for the upcoming cap and trade vote. Better named "cap and tax," the bill is headed to the House floor for a vote Friday thanks to a last-minute deal struck between Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN). Peterson was opposed to the bill's provision allowing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to monitor its complex carbon offset and land use provisions. With Peterson's sway over the large farm-state voting block, Waxman was willing to allow the Department of Agriculture to hold that power so that Peterson could deliver the necessary votes.

Still, passage is not a foregone conclusion. Near universal Republican opposition combined with regional pockets of Democrats fearful of high energy costs will make this vote an interesting one.

On the cost of energy, The Wall Street Journal writes, "The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment." Even billionaire Democrat donor Warren Buffet acknowledged that cap and tax is a "huge tax ... and a fairly regressive tax." And the Journal concludes, "Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality."

News From the Swamp: The Perfect Stimulus Package

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has released a report detailing 100 stimulus projects he defined as wasteful, including bike paths that could have been paid for with state money and $300 road signs that do nothing more than detail the amount of stimulus money spent on particular road projects. The U.S. Conference of Mayors also issued its own report stating that the nation's major metropolitan centers, which account for 73 percent of the GDP and 63 percent of the population, are receiving less than 50 percent of the transportation money.

In spite of the growing chorus of disgruntled recipients and the mounting evidence of wasteful spending, the administration is supremely confident in its work. The White House rejected every item on Coburn's list, stating that the administration has found no problems with any of the 20,000 projects that have been approved so far. And we're supposed to rest easy with that statement because the White House has put Vice President Joe Biden in charge of watching over the $787 billion goodie bag. Sen. Coburn's spokesman, John Hart, probably said it best. "The notion that the vice president's vetting process has been perfect is laughable and an insult to taxpayers."

New & Notable Legislation

A bill being considered in the House seeks to add more oversight of the National Security Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by establishing independent inspectors general who could not be fired by the heads of those agencies. Furthermore, in a blatant act of politicization, those IGs would be subject to Senate confirmation. It is a move that Congress admits is meant to bring intelligence activities more under their control, and it will come at the price of effective intelligence gathering and analysis that is meant to be free of politics. Democrats will claim that such a thing didn't exist during the Bush years, but if this bill passes it certainly won't happen now.

America's nicotine-addicted president signed into law a bill that will allow the Food and Drug Administration unprecedented control over the tobacco industry. The FDA will now hold sway over the production, marketing and distribution of cigarettes in the U.S. President Obama said little about his own smoking habit except to add that he was "95 percent cured." Anyone who has ever beaten an addiction to anything knows that you can't quantify it and expect to beat it. You either smoke or you don't.

After taking heat from all comers, including The New York Times, over his broken campaign pledge to post legislation on the Internet for five days before signing it into law, Obama has decided to propose something a little more practical. Now, the White House will post the bills for public viewing a little earlier in the legislative process, though they made no indication as to when. Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government watchdog, questioned the whole controversy. "There isn't anybody in this town who doesn't know that commenting after a bill has been passed is meaningless." However, even if the bill cannot be changed by the public viewing stage, at least citizens have the opportunity to hold accountable legislators who slip in last minute items, and they can press the president to sign or veto.

Judicial Benchmarks: SCOTUS Rulings

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to rule on the constitutionality of a provision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act that allows the federal government to pre-approve changes to election law in 16 mainly Southern states. Instead, sticking to Chief Justice John Roberts's belief in deciding cases narrowly, the high court ruled 8-1 that if states or districts can prove they have not engaged in disenfranchisement based on race, they can apply to the federal government for an exemption to Section 5. Interestingly, the lone dissent came from Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote that Section 5 is unconstitutional. In the majority opinion, Roberts noted the success of the Voting Rights Act in destroying institutionalized racism in the South that prevented blacks from voting. He also wrote, "Whether conditions continue to justify such legislation is a difficult constitutional question we do not answer today," leaving open the door for another constitutional challenge to Section 5 in the future.

The High Court also ruled Thursday that Arizona school officials violated a 13-year-old girl's constitutional rights with a strip search based on their suspicion that she had ibuprofen in her underwear. No pills were found and, without a clear threat to other students, the Court said the search was unreasonable. The vote was 8-1 and once again, Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissenter. Thomas wrote, "Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment." The case now goes back to a lower court to determine what damages, if any, should be paid by the school district.

Finally, it wasn't all that long ago when media commentators were frothing at the mouth over the thought of Karl Rove being frog marched out of the White House and Vice President Cheney being impeached over the revelation that CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame served as a "covert" agent. So it's not surprising that they have been awfully quiet about the Supreme Court's final rebuff of Plame's civil lawsuit against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Cheney, among others. While liberal critics decried the Court's refusal to hear an appeal of the suit -- one calling the decision "a setback for our democracy" -- the high court was only following lower courts that also declined to take it up. Leftist rage, however, should also be directed at their own president, since the Obama Justice Department took Cheney's side in the case, continuing the fight the DOJ took up under President Bush. The Lunatic Left has long portrayed Cheney as the devil, but in this case their devil received his due.

---

ThePatriotPost.com

Friday

26 June 09

***********************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact REGARDLESS of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.
The FACT that he was not born of TWO US CITIZEN PARENTS is all that matters. The question of his birth certificate is a distraction (a distraction fostered by Obama’s supporters?) that ought not to occupy our time and resources.

However, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all even if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. The reason is because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
_

HERE IS THE QUESTION WHICH EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN SHOULD BE ASKING HIS OR HER CONGRESSMAN AND SENATORS

“During the 2008 election, then Senator Obama published a statement at his website which said that his birth status was ‘governed’ by the British Nationality Act of 1948. Can you please tell me, and the American people, how a person governed - at birth - by British law, can be a natural born citizen of the United States and thus constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States?”

---
- Leo Rugiens




Thursday, June 25, 2009

FROM OBAMA'S VANTAGE POINT WATERBOARDING MUST SEEM BARBARIC AND SHARIAH LAW TOLERANT

Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

Robert's Rules

"Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve." --Benjamin Franklin

Major Robert Rogers

Anyone familiar with the procedures for deliberative assemblies will recognize "Robert's Rules of Order," a manual authored by a 19th-century Army officer and adopted as the standard for official proceedings. Of course, a discussion of parliamentary procedure would be an unwelcome and out-of-order topic for The Patriot, but there are some rules we should consider amid the endless bantering about how to treat jihadi detainees.

To that end, I ask that you consider another "Robert's Rules," those of Robert Rogers, an 18th-century military officer who authored "The True Plan of Discipline" for his Rangers in 1759.

Rogers is considered the Father of the U.S. Army Rangers, and the 75th Ranger Regiment can trace its heritage of unconventional tactics and ethos to Rogers' standing orders for his Rangers.

It is worth revisiting Rogers' unconventional tactics in order to better understand all the controversy over the CIA's unconventional methods for coercing actionable intelligence from three terrorist Jihadis at Gitmo: 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and his friends Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

In 2007, The New York Times published a report about jihadi captives being subject to "torture." In a New York second, a little known presidential aspirant, Barack Hussein Obama, made this issue a centerpiece of his campaign and a rallying point for his vocal base of Socialist peaceniks. Obama declared he would put an end to the "torture" and close the Guantanamo holding facility.

BHO is now trying to make good on that promise, but not without compromising U.S. national security, emboldening our enemies by way of his timidity and lack of resolve, and sustaining substantial casualties among his political ranks. (See Nancy Pelosi's tortured efforts to run for cover: "We were not -- I repeat -- were not told that waterboarding or any other of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used.")

In 2002, the U.S. Office of Legal Counsel issued a secret memorandum approving what former CIA director Porter Goss called "a professional interrogation technique," waterboarding. The technique was described as follows: "A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds due to the presence of the cloth ... During those 20 to 40 seconds, water is continuously applied (from a canteen cup or small watering can). The cloth is lifted, and the individual is allowed to breathe unimpeded for three or four full breaths ... The procedure may then be repeated [but] would not last more than 20 minutes in any one application."

For many years, waterboarding has been used in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) training course for U.S. military special operators including Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon and Army Delta Force. Everyone survives it, but only after revealing whatever information they were told previously to withhold. In other words, waterboarding is not deadly, but it is effective.

The Eighth Amendment to our Constitution stipulates, "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

Obama has argued that waterboarding constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment."

I beg to differ.

First, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have no constitutional rights. As non-U.S. citizens, they may have some rights under international conventions to which the U.S. is a signatory, but no constitutional rights.

Second, using a dull blade to saw the head off of a non-combatant captive as Khalid did to American journalist Daniel Pearl, and proudly videotaping Pearl's execution for the world to see, constitutes torture by any civilized standards -- which is to say that "cruel and unusual punishment" is, and necessarily should be, relative to cultural practice.

Journalist Daniel Pearl -- Murdered by Khalid

In any context other than the warped alternate universe that exists inside the Beltway, it is absurd to suggest that waterboarding, sleep and spatial deprivation, face-slapping, and loop-playing objectionable music constitute "torture." But for those in the political class who begin their day with mochaccinos, cappuccinos or frappuccinos, spend their day receiving constituent kowtows, and end it with expensive Chardonnays -- missing a tennis match or golf game is torture.

Robert Rogers and his Rangers, however, understood that defeating one's enemy, particularly in unconventional asymmetric warfare v. conventional or symmetric warfare, requires unconventional methods.

Rogers was born the son of Scots-Irish immigrants to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1731, and grew up in New Hampshire. He learned his skills of stealth, perseverance, tenacity and adaptability in the forests and mountain frontiers of New England, where terror reigned upon settlers in the form of attacks by barbaric native peoples.

Rogers' unconventional ambush and survival tactics were adapted from these dangerous adversaries. His skills led to a leadership position among a group of men of similar ability and temperament that he chose to combat the French and Indians on the frontier from 1754 to 1763.

King George II's Crown regiments could not contend with unconventional warfare in the wilderness, but Rogers' Rangers could. So effective were the Rangers that they became the Crown's primary scouting unit by 1755.

In a new biography on Rogers, "War on the Run" by John Ross, the author details how effective Rogers' Rangers were with their unconventional tactics, and their ability to fight fire with fire.

Ross notes that Rogers understood psychological warfare was as important as firepower or numerical superiority in order to defeat an enemy. For example, Rogers once scalped a French captive in plain view of his fort's French garrison. The French surrendered shortly thereafter.

Native tribes aligned with the French against the British also came to fear Rogers' Rangers, who had not only adapted many of their tactics, but had perfected them.

A decade after the end of the French and Indian war, men from the ranks of the Rangers were among the militiamen at the Battle of Concord Bridge.

The lesson for Obama, which every combat-seasoned special operator already fully understands, is this: To defeat a vicious enemy -- especially the kind that hijacks civilian airliners and flies them into civilian buildings, the kind that saws the heads off civilians and posts the videos on the Internet -- that enemy must be confronted without restraints like Obama's moratorium against pouring water in a terrorist's face to get information about which American citizens will be murdered next.

Earlier this month, Obama told Islamic masses in Cairo, "The fear and anger that [9/11] provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course." Clearly, the "cases" he was referring to are those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

Obama also told his Muslim brethren, "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance."

I guess from his vantage point -- sipping a frappuccino between cigarettes over The New York Times every morning, prior to issuing daily marching orders to his Leftist cadres -- waterboarding must seem barbaric and Shariah Law tolerant.

It is a tragic reality that Obama and his acolytes might only "see the light" when some "tolerant" cell of jihadis detonates a nuclear device in a U.S. urban center. Perhaps the source of their fissile core will be an Islamic nuclear power Obama coddled for conversation like, say, Iran, which has certainly been demonstrating its penchant of late for Muslim tolerance of Iranian dissenters.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

(To submit reader comments visit our Letters to the Editor page.)

Related Essays

Related Commentary

"The president, having started a fire by recklessly releasing memos describing interrogation tactics, and then having poured gasoline on the flames by reversing himself on the banana-republic notion of investigating his political rivals, cannot douse the resulting inferno simply by saying, Oh, never mind. The president is reeling because he sees his legislative agenda going up in smoke. In his inexperience, he reckoned that his base on the Left would somehow be sated by the mere disclosure of Bush-era methods, coupled with vague assurances that a day of reckoning for Bush administration officials might soon be at hand. His Republican opposition, he further figured, would be cowed by his moral preening on 'torture.' This, he concluded, would mean smooth sailing ahead for the more pressing business of nationalizing the economy, starting with the health-care industry. But as George W. Bush might have warned his successor, anti-American ideologues are emboldened, not mollified, by concessions." --former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy on Obama's release of the CIA interrogation memos

"Some people believe you never torture. Ever. They are akin to conscientious objectors who will never fight in any war under any circumstances, and for whom we correctly show respect by exempting them from war duty. But we would never make one of them Centcom commander. Private principles are fine, but you don't entrust such a person with the military decisions upon which hinges the safety of the nation." --Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer

---

BY MARK ALEXANDER

THE PATRIOT POST. COM

THURSDAY

25 JUNE 09

*******************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact regardless of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.

It is even possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. Because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
---
- Leo Rugiens



AMERICA HAS ELECTED ITS FIRST EUROPEAN PRIME MINISTER AS ITS PRESIDENT - SHOULD WE BE GLAD OR SAD, OR MAYBE WE SHOULD SOBER UP FROM OUR 2008 BINGE

Cartoons By Michael Ramirez


AS WE PROGRESS FURTHER AND FURTHER
into the fetid swamp that America is becoming
in the Obamanation, it is good to look back
from time to time and to see where we
were and where some were predicting
we would go.

One of the most prescient writers and commentators
is Mark Steyn.
Here is something he wrote back in
March of this year.

- Leo Rugiens

*******************************

Back during the election campaign,
I was on the radio and a caller demanded to know
what I made of the persistent rumor
that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
“I doubt it,” I said.
“It’s perfectly obvious he was born in Stockholm.
Okay, maybe Brussels or Strasbourg.”
And the host gave an appreciative titter, and I made a mental note to start working up a little
“Barack Obama, the first European Prime Minister
to be elected President of the United States”
shtick for maybe a year into the first term.

But here we are 20 minutes in [THIS WAS WRITTEN ON MARCH 23 2009], and full-scale Europeanization is already under way: Europeanized health care, Europeanized daycare, Europeanized college education, Europeanized climate-change policy… Obama’s pseudo-SOTU speech was America’s first State of the European Union address, in which the president deftly yoked the language of American exceptionalism to the cause of European statism. Apparently, nothing testifies to the American virtues of self-reliance, entrepreneurial energy and the can-do spirit like joining the vast army of robotic extras droning in unison, “The government needs to do more for me…” For the moment, Washington is offering Euro-sized government with Euro-sized economic intervention, Euro-sized social programs and Euro-sized regulation. But apparently not Euro-sized taxation.

Hmm. Even the Europeans haven’t attempted that trick. But don’t worry, if that pledge not to increase taxes on families earning under $250,000 doesn’t have quite the Continental sophistication you’re looking for in your federal government, I doubt it will be operative very long.

Most Americans don’t yet grasp the scale of the Obama project. The naysayers complain, oh, it’s another Jimmy Carter, or it’s the new New Deal, or it’s LBJ’s Great Society applied to health care… You should be so lucky. Forget these parochial nickel’n’dime comparisons. It’s all those multiplied a gazillionfold and nuclearized – or Europeanized, which is less dramatic but ultimately more lethal. For a distressing number of American liberals, the natural condition of an advanced, progressive western democracy is Scandinavia, and the US has just been taking a wee bit longer to get there. You’ve probably heard academics talking about “the Swedish model”, and carelessly assumed they were referring to the Britt Ekland retrospective on AMC. If only. And, incidentally, fond though I am of Britt, the fact that I can think of no Swedish dolly bird of the last 30 years with which to update that gag is itself a telling part of the problem. Anyway, under the Swedish model, state spending accounts for 54 per cent of GDP. In the US, it’s about 40 per cent. Ten years ago, it was 34 per cent. So we’re trending Stockholmwards. And why stop there? In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, government spending accounts for between 72 and 78 per cent of the economy, which is about the best a “free” society can hope to attain this side of complete Sovietization. Fortunately for what’s left of America’s private sector, “the Welsh model” doesn’t have quite the same beguiling euphony as “the Swedish model”. But, even so, if Scandinavia really is the natural condition of an advanced democracy, then we’re all doomed. And by “doomed” I’m not merely making the usual overheated rhetorical flourish in an attempt to persuade you to stick through the rather dry statistics in the next paragraph, but rather projecting total societal collapse and global conflagration, and all sooner than you think.

There are two basic objections to the wholesale Europeanization of America. The easy one is the economic argument. The short version of late 20th century history is that Continental Europe entirely missed out on the Eighties boom and its Nineties echo. A couple of weeks back, the evening news shows breathlessly announced that US unemployment had risen to seven per cent, the highest in a decade and a half. Yet the worst American unemployment rate is still better than the best French unemployment rate for that same period. Indeed, for much of the 1990s the EU as a whole averaged an unemployment rate twice that of the US and got used to double-digit unemployment as a routine and semi-permanent feature of life. Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe in the Sixties and Seventies, is now a country whose annual growth rate has averaged 1.1 per cent since the mid-Nineties; where every indicator – home ownership, new car registrations – is heading down; and in which government agencies have to budget for such novel expenditures as narrowing the sewer lines in economically moribund, fast depopulating municipalities because the existing pipes are too wide to, ah, expedite the reduced flow. Even flushing yourself down the toilet of history is trickier than it looks.

Of course, if you’re one of the seemingly endless supply of Americans willing to turn up at the president’s ersatz “town meetings” to petition the seigneur to take care of your medical bills and your mortgage and the gas in your tank, the Euro-deal looks pretty sweet. When they deign to work, even the French can match the Americans in hourly productivity. Unfortunately for boring things like GDP, the Euro-week has far fewer hours. There are government-mandated maximum 35-hour work weeks, six weeks of paid vacation, more public holidays, and, in the event that, after all that, some unfortunate clerical error still shows the calendar with an occasional five-day week, you can always strike. The upshot is that, while a working American puts in an average 1,800 hours a year, a working German puts in 1,350 hours a year – or 25 per cent less.

It’s tempting to assume these are deeply ingrained cultural differences. “It’s The Good Life, full of fun, seems to be the ideal,” as the Gallic crooner Sasha Distel smoothly observed. But, in fact, until the Seventies Americans and Europeans put in more or less identical work hours. What happened is that the Protobamas of the Continental political class legislated sloth, and, as is the way, the citizenry got used to it. Indeed, the proposed European Constitution enshrines leisure as a constitutional right. Article II-31: “Every worker has the right to limitation of maximum working hours, to daily and weekly rest periods and to an annual period of paid holiday.” There’s no First Amendment or Second Amendment, but who needs free speech or guns when life is one gentle swing in the government hammock?

When American commentators notice these numbers, it’s usually to crank out a why-oh-why-can’t-we-be-as-enlightened? op-ed. A couple of years back Paul Krugman wrote a column asserting that, while parochial American conservatives drone on about “family values”, the Europeans live it, enacting policies that are more “family friendly”. On the Continent, claims the professor, “government regulations actually allow people to make a desirable tradeoff - to modestly lower income in return for more time with friends and family.”

As befits a distinguished economist, Professor Krugman failed to notice, that for a continent of “family friendly” policies, Europe is remarkably short of families. While America’s fertility rate is more or less at replacement level – 2.1 – seventeen European nations are at what demographers call “lowest-low” fertility - 1.3 or less - a rate from which no society in human history has ever recovered. Germans, Spaniards, Italians and Greek have upside-down family trees: four grandparents have two children and one grandchild. The numbers are grim, and getting grimmer. The EU began the century with four workers for every retiree. By 2050, Germany will have 1.1 workers for every retiree. At Oktoberfest a decade or three hence, that fetching young lad in the lederhosen serving you your foaming stein will be singlehandedly propping up entire old folks’ homes. Except he won’t. He’ll have scrammed and headed off to Australia in search of a livelier youth scene, or at any rate a livelier late-middle-aged scene. And the guy taking his place in the beer garden won’t be wearing lederhosen because he’ll be Muslim and they don’t like to expose their knees. And, come to think of it, he’s unlikely to be serving beer, either. The EU would need at least another 50 million immigrants – working immigrants, that is (they’re not always, especially with Euro-welfare) – to keep wrinkly old Gerhard and Jean-Claude in the social programs to which they’ve become accustomed.

To run the numbers is to render them absurd: It’s not about economic performance, public pensions liabilities, entitlement reform. Something more profound is at work. Europe has entered a long dark Oktoberfest of the soul, drinking to oblivion in the autumn of the year, as les feuilles mortes pile up all around.

Let’s take the second part of Paul Krugman’s assertion: These “family-friendly” policies certainly give you “more time”. For what? High-school soccer and 4-H at the county fair? No. As we’ve seen, kids not called Mohammed are thin on the ground. God? No. When you worship the state-as-church, you don’t need to bother showing up to Mass anymore. Civic volunteerism? No. All but extinct on the Continent. So what do Europeans do with all that time? Forget for the moment Europe’s lack of world-beating companies: They regard capitalism red in tooth and claw as an Anglo-American fetish, and they mostly despise it. And in fairness some of their quasi-state corporations are very pleasant: I’d much rather fly Air France than United or Continental. Where are Europe’s men of science? At American universities. Meanwhile, Continental governments pour fortunes into prestigious white elephants of Euro-identity, like the Airbus 380, the QE2 of the skies, capable of carrying 500, 800, a thousand passengers at a time, if only somebody at some airport somewhere would build the extended runways you need to handle it.

But what about the things Europeans supposedly value? With so much free time, where is the great European art? Do they paint, write, make movies? Not so’s you’d notice. Not compared to 40 years ago. Never mind Bach or even Offenbach, these days the French can’t produce a Sasha Distel or the Germans a Bert Kaempfert, the boffo Teuton bandleader who somewhat improbably managed to play a critical role in the careers of the three biggest Anglophone pop acts of the 20th century – he wrote “Strangers In The Night” for Sinatra, “Wooden Heart” for Elvis, and produced the Beatles’ first recording session. If that sounds like a “Trivial Pursuit” answer, it’s not. Eutopia turned out to be the trivial pursuit; to produce a Bert Kaempfert figure right now would be a major accomplishment Europe can’t quite muster the energy for. “Give people plenty and security, and they will fall into spiritual torpor,” wrote Charles Murray in In Our Hands. “When life becomes an extended picnic, with nothing of importance to do, ideas of greatness become an irritant. Such is the nature of the Europe syndrome.”

The key word here is “give”. When the state “gives” you plenty – when it takes care of your health, takes cares of your kids, takes care of your elderly parents, takes care of every primary responsibility of adulthood – it’s not surprising that the citizenry cease to function as adults: Life becomes a kind of extended adolescence – literally so for those Germans who’ve mastered the knack of staying in education till they’re 34 and taking early retirement at 42 (which sounds a lot like where Obama’s college-for-all plans will lead).

Genteel decline can be very agreeable - initially: You still have terrific restaurants, beautiful buildings, a great opera house. And once the pressure’s off it’s nice to linger at the sidewalk table, have a second café au lait and a pain au chocolat, and watch the world go by. At the Munich Security Conference in February, President Sarkozy demanded of his fellow Continentals, “Does Europe want peace, or do we want to be left in peace?” To pose the question is to answer it. Alas, it only works for a generation or two, and then, as the gay bar owners are discovering in a fast Islamifying Amsterdam, reality reasserts itself.

In 2003, the IMF conducted a study of Eurosclerosis and examined the impact on chronic unemployment and other woes if the Eurozone labor market were to be Americanized – that’s to say, increase participation in the work force, reduce taxes and job-for-life security, etc. The changes would be tough, but over the long-term beneficial. But it’s too late for that: What’s “changed” is the disposition of the people: If it’s unsustainable, who cares? As long as they can sustain it till I’m dead. That’s the second and most critical objection to Europeanization: It corrodes self-reliance very quickly, to the point where even basic survival instincts can be bred out of society in a generation or two. In America Alone, I cited a headline that seemed almost too perfect a summation of a Continent where entitlement addiction trumps demographic reality: “Frenchman Lived With Dead Mother To Keep Pension.” She was 94 when she croaked, so she’d presumably been getting the government check for a good three decades, but hey it’s 700 euros a month. He kept her corpse under a pile of newspapers in the living room for five years, and put on a woman’s voice whenever the benefits office called. Since my book came out, readers send me similar stories on a regular basis: “An Austrian woman lived with the mummified remains of her aunt for a year, Vienna police said Wednesday.” In Europe, nothing is certain except death and welfare, and why let the former get in the way of the latter?

It’s interesting that it never occurred to the IMF that anyone would be loopy enough to try their study the other way around – to examine the impact on America of Europeanization. For that, we had to wait for the election of Barack Obama. Which brings us to the third problem of Europeanization: What are the consequences for the world if the hyperpower embarks on the same form of assisted suicide as the rest of the west? In quite the wackiest essay Foreign Policy has ever published, Parag Khanna of the Brookings Institution argued that the European Union was now “the world’s first metrosexual superpower”. And he meant it as a compliment. Mr Khanna’s thesis is that, unlike the insecure American cowboy, Europe is secure enough in its hard power to know when to deploy a little sweet-smelling soft power. Seriously:

The EU has become more effective—and more attractive—than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout… Metrosexuals always know how to dress for the occasion (or mission)… but it’s best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than U.S. Army fatigues… Even Turkey is freshening up with eau d’Europe… Stripping off stale national sovereignty (that’s so last century), Europeans now parade their ‘pooled power,’ the new look for this geopolitical season…

Brand Europe is taking over… Europe’s flashy new symbol of power, the Airbus 380, will soon strut on runways all over Asia... But don’t be deceived by the metrosexual superpower’s pleatless pants—Europe hasn’t lost touch with its hard assets…Europe’s 60,000-troop Rapid Reaction Force will soon be ready to deploy around the world… Just as metrosexuals are redefining masculinity, Europe is redefining old notions of power and influence. Expect Bend It Like Brussels to play soon in capital cities worldwide.

And on and on, like one of those pieces an editor runs when he wants to get fired and go to Tuscany to write a novel. The Airbus 380 is a classic stillborn Eurostatist money pit, the Rapid Reaction Force can’t deploy anywhere beyond a Europe Day parade down the Champs Elysee, and given that the governing Socialist caucus on the Brussels city council already has a Muslim majority I doubt they’ll be bending it themselves that much longer. This is the logical reductio of the Robert Kagan thesis that Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus. It’s truer to say that Europeans are from Pluto, which was recently downgraded to “dwarf planet” status. A dwarf superpower doesn’t have policies, it has attitudes – in part, because that’s all it can afford. An America that attempts Euro-scale social programs would have to reel in its military expenditures. After all, Europe could only introduce socialized health care and all the rest because the despised cowboy across the ocean was picking up the tab for the continent’s defense. So for America to follow the EU down the same social path would have huge strategic implications for everyone else, not least Europe. We would be joining the Continentals in prancing around in Armani pinstripes and eau d’Europe as the bottom dropped out of our hard assets. And Putin, Kim Jong-il, the mullahs et al might not find the perfume as heady as Mr Khanna does.

Even in its heyday – the Sixties and Seventies - the good times in Europe were underwritten by the American security guarantee: The only reason why France could get away with being France, Belgium with being Belgium, Sweden with being Sweden is because America was America. Kagan’s thesis – Americans are from Mars, Europeans are from Venus – will look like paradise lost when the last conventional “great power” of western civilization embraces the death-cult narcissism of its transatlantic confreres in the full knowledge of where that leads. Why would you do anything so crazy? Ah, but these are crazy times: Europeans are from Pluto, Americans are from Goofy.
---
THE EUROPEANIZATION OF AMERICA
by Mark Steyn
THE NATIONAL REVIEW
March 23rd 2009

******************************************************

BARRY SOETORO aka BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
IS A
USURPER

He is not eligible to be
President of the United States
because he is not a Natural Born Citizen
as required by Article Two, Section One, Clause Five of the United States Constitution.

This is a fact regardless of
where he was born (Mombassa, Hawaii, Chicago, Mecca or Mars).

He is not eligible
because he was not born of
TWO PARENTS
BOTH OF WHOM WERE UNITED STATES CITIZENS
at the time of his birth as required by the Constitution.
His father was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of his birth and afterwards.

It is even possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all if he was born in Kenya, as three witnesses have testified. Because his mother could not pass her US citizenship on to her son because she did not live continuously in the United States for five full years after her fourteenth birthday as required by the US immigration law in effect during that period of time.

Check it out:
http://www.TheObamaFile.com/ObamaNaturalBorn.htm
Also, an excellent introductory primer on Obama Presiidential Eligibility is to be found at:
http://people.mags.net/tonchen/birthers.htm

His usurpation can only be corrected (1) by Congress through his Impeachment and Removal [something which will never happen in a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid], or (2) it can be
corrected by his resignation, which could happen if the public presssure on him to resign becomes great enough, or (3) by his removal by the United States Supreme Court affirming a Quo Warranto decision of the United States Federal District Court for the District of Columbia [which process Attorney General Eric Holder would never allow to even begin] or (4) by an amendment to the Constitution,
which will never happen because that again would require the agreement of a Congress controlled by Pelosi/Reid.
---
- Leo Rugiens