Sunday, January 31, 2010

OBAMA v SCOTUS. OBAMA RECEIVED $750 MILLION IN CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS! HYPOCRISY PERSONIFIED!

Senator Charles Schumer, the Senate's top recipient

of special-interest contributions,

is outraged by the Supreme Court's ruling.

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

DENOUNCING the Supreme Court's Jan. 21 ruling
in the Citizens United campaign-finance case,
President Obama called it "a green light to a new stampede of special interest money
in our politics" and "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies, and the other powerful interests."
He denounced it again in his State of the Union address last week, saying it would "open the floodgates for special interests" and adding: "I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests."

The Senate's top recipient of special-interest contributions is outraged by the Supreme Court's ruling.
The president's rebuke was not without chutzpah. In his 2008 White House run, he became the first candidate in the modern era to reject public financing, thereby freeing himself to amass a staggering $745 million in campaign contributions. Much of this was "special interest money" -- according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama's record-breaking campaign haul included $43 million from lawyers and lobbyists, $19 million from donors connected to the health-care industry, $18 million from investment and commercial banking, $10 million from real estate interests, and $9 million from Hollywood and the television industry.
Obama isn't the only critic of the high court's decision whose outrage at the thought of corporate influence in political campaigns seems a trifle ... contrived. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, condemned the court for having "predetermined the winners of next November's elections. It won't be Republicans. It won't be Democrats. It will be corporate America." Coming from Schumer, that's a curious complaint: He is the Senate's leading recipient of campaign contributions from political action committees and other donors in nearly two dozen industries, including real estate, construction, securities, liquor, insurance, and hedge funds.
Worse than hypocrisy, though, is the condescension for voters that underlies so much of the fury aimed at the Supreme Court's ruling.
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wailed in alarm that "if Goldman Sachs wants to pay the entire cost of every congressional campaign in the US, the law of the land now allows it." (Actually, it doesn't: The decision left intact the ban on direct corporate donations to politicians.) Alan Colmes, the house liberal at Fox News, predicted a "corporate takeover over of America." Monica Youn of the Brennan Center for Justice, writing before the ruling was handed down, warned that if the justices deregulated corporate political speech "voters will be forced into a couch-potato role, mere viewers of the electoral spectacle bought and paid for by wealthy companies."
But voters are not mindless dolts. Campaign advertising doesn't turn them into automatons, blindly voting for whichever candidates "approve this message" the most. American politics is replete with candidates and campaigns that lost handily, notwithstanding the fortune spent on newspaper ads, radio spots, and TV commercials promoting them. The court's decision simply allows corporations, like countless other associations and groups, to have their say during election campaigns. It has no effect at all on the ability of voters to ignore what those corporations may choose to tell them.
You wouldn't know it from all the hyperventilating about dastardly corporate advertising, but Americans are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves. Why do so many smart people find that hard to accept? It's an old story. In 1958, John Kenneth Galbraith published The Affluent Society, a bestseller that argued among other things that big business had grown more powerful than the laws of supply and demand, since corporate advertising could always generate the demand needed to keep production high. As it happens, 1958 was also the year that the Ford Motor Company decided to pull the plug on the Edsel, the new car model it had introduced the previous fall with great fanfare and a vast ad budget -- but that American drivers steadfastly refused to buy.
Whether corporations will walk through the door the Supreme Court has now opened for them is not clear. Many corporations will doubtless avoid taking sides in heated election campaigns for fear of antagonizing their customers; others may decide that government-relations budgets are better spent on quiet lobbying than on open electioneering.
But even those that do choose to advertise during an election cycle will not make the mistake so many of the court's detractors are making. They know that Americans are not sheep, easily herded by means of clever commercials. If corporate advertising was irresistible, after all, we'd all be drinking New Coke.

New Coke: Corporate advertising is hardly irresistible.

Candidates, campaigns, and New Coke
by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe January 30, 2010
http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6887/candidates-campaigns-and-new-coke
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
***********************************************************

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.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

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. BUT if you are really convinced of the value of the COLB (certificate of live birth) that Obama posted on his website, see this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9830547/Sun-Yatsen-Certification-of-Live-Birth-in-Hawaii

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother 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

Friday, January 29, 2010

OBAMA HEADS THE SHIP OF STATE STRAIGHT FOR THE ICEBERG

The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing
was not the fact that a terrorist got on a plane --
that can happen to any administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration --
but what happened afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured
and came under the full control of the U.S. government.
After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him.
We have since learned that the decision to Mirandize Abdulmutallab had been made without the knowledge of or consultation with (1) the secretary of defense, (2) the secretary of homeland security, (3) the director of the FBI, (4) the director of the National Counterterrorism Center or (5) the director of national intelligence (DNI).
The Justice Department acted not just unilaterally but unaccountably. Obama's own DNI said that Abdulmutallab should have been interrogated by the HIG, the administration's new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.
Perhaps you hadn't heard the term. Well, in the very first week of his presidency, Obama abolished by executive order the Bush-Cheney interrogation procedures and pledged to study a substitute mechanism. In August, the administration announced the establishment of the HIG, housed in the FBI but overseen by the National Security Council.
Where was it during the Abdulmutallab case? Not available, admitted National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, because it had been conceived for use only abroad. Had not one person in this vast administration of highly nuanced sophisticates considered the possibility of a terror attack on American soil?

It gets worse. Blair later had to explain that the HIG was not deployed because it does not yet exist. After a year! I suppose this administration was so busy deploying scores of the country's best lawyerly minds on finding the most rapid way to release Gitmo miscreants that it could not be bothered to establish a single operational HIG team to interrogate at-large miscreants with actionable intelligence that might save American lives.
Travesties of this magnitude are not lost on the American people. One of the reasons Scott Brown won in Massachusetts was his focus on the Mirandizing of Abdulmutallab.
Of course, this case is just a reflection of a larger problem: an administration that insists on treating Islamist terrorism as a law-enforcement issue. Which is why the Justice Department's other egregious terror decision, granting Khalid Sheik Mohammed a civilian trial in New York, is now the subject of a letter from six senators -- three Republicans, two Democrats and Joe Lieberman -- asking Attorney General Eric Holder to reverse the decision.
Lieberman and Sen. Susan Collins had written an earlier letter asking for Abdulmutallab to be turned over to the military for renewed interrogation. The problem is, it's hard to see how that decision gets reversed. Once you've read a man Miranda rights, what do you say? We are idiots? On second thought . . .
Hence the agitation over the KSM trial. This one can be reversed, and it's a good surrogate for this administration's insistence upon criminalizing -- and therefore trivializing -- a war on terror that has now struck three times in one year within the United States, twice with effect (the Arkansas killer and the Fort Hood shooter) and once with a shockingly near miss (Abdulmutallab).
On the KSM civilian trial, sentiment is widespread that it is quite insane to spend $200 million a year to give the killer of 3,000 innocents the largest propaganda platform on earth, while at the same time granting civilian rights of cross-examination and discovery that risk betraying U.S. intelligence sources and methods.
Accordingly, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Frank Wolf have gone beyond appeals to the administration and are planning to introduce a bill to block funding for the trial. It's an important measure. It makes flesh an otherwise abstract issue -- should terrorists be treated as enemy combatants or criminal defendants? The vote will force members of Congress to declare themselves. There will be no hiding from the question.
Congress may not be able to roll back the Abdulmutallab travesty. But there will be future Abdulmutallabs. By cutting off funding for the KSM trial, Congress can send Obama a clear message: The Constitution is neither a safety net for illegal enemy combatants nor a suicide pact for us.
The handling of the Christmas Day bombing suspect: the scandal grows.
By Charles Krauthammer
THE WASHINGTON POST
Friday, January 29, 2010

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

So it's full speed ahead, even if nobody knows where we're going.

We can console ourselves that if we're lucky we might not get there.
That's the main point of President Obama's eagerly awaited assessment of the State of the Union. He said, as all presidents do, that the state of the union is pretty good on his watch, considering that George W. Bush, his favorite bad boy, bequeathed a sad-sack union.

Mr. Obama now turns to jobs, jobs, jobs, and promises to do for job creation what he did for health care reform and what he's doing to protect us from terror catastrophe. Which may not be enough, but he's doing a bang-up job of protecting the rights of terrorists.

The president displayed an unusual array of friends and enemies. He lectured the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, six of whom were seated as a group on the front row, for their decision to uphold the First Amendment as it applies to corporations (which are comprised of individual citizens). No one can remember when a president ever breached manners and protocol in such a breathtaking way. When the president inaccurately asserted that the court had "reversed a century of law," Associate Justice Samuel Alito was captured on camera mouthing the words "not true," which is apparently the judicial way of saying "you lie!" But Mr. Obama is a onetime law professor and it's possible that his lecture was kindly intended to fill in the gaps of the legal knowledge of the learned justices seated before him. Professors are always eager to display what they know, even if what they know isn't so. We should give the president the benefit of the doubt, even if the stoic justices clearly did not.

Eric Holder, his attorney general also seated among house seats, appeared to be having a high old time, laughing and smiling and basking in the synthetic admiration that high government officials are accustomed to. Mr. Holder is the author of the remarkable decision to grant Miranda rights to the man who tried to celebrate Christmas by blowing up an airliner over Detroit. (Who says radical Muslims have no respect for the holidays of other people's religions?)
President Obama boasted of how much better he is at fighting terrorism than George W. was: "In the last year, hundreds of al Qaeda's fighters and affiliates, including many senior leaders, have been captured or killed, far more than in 2008." Since neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has published body counts (that's so Vietnam War), it's a claim that even the Associated Press concedes is impossible to verify.

What is easy to verify is how soft the Obama administration continues to be on terrorists. No waterboarding (not even when a grubby bewhiskered terrorist clearly needs a bath), no harsh questioning. No fair treating such a soldier of Allah like FDR was willing to treat a soldier of the Nazis or a Shinto warrior during World War II.
It's not fashionable in certain circles to notice this, but we can be sure the Obama treatment of terrorists is taken into account in other places. British intelligence officials say that over the past week an "unusually high number" of prospective evil-doers on the airlines' no-fly list have tried to board airliners bound for the United States. As a consequence, the London government has raised the assessment of the terror threat from "severe," which means an attack is reckoned "highly likely," to "critical," which means an attack is "imminent."

The London Daily Mirror quotes British security sources that an Egyptian man tried to board an American Airlines flight last weekend in London bound for Miami. The next day a Saudi man tried to board a United Airlines flight from London to Chicago. They were sent home.

All this is enough to give Americans nightmares, particularly when it's not at all clear that the high officials of the government are taking the threat as seriously as we expect them to. When Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, told Congress that it was a mistake that FBI field agents, and not specially trained interrogators (but not waterboarders), had questioned the Detroit bomber, he retreated later in the day to say his remarks were "misconstrued." Since so much Washington talk is electronically recorded now, government officials who blurt out inconvenient truths no longer have the luxury of saying they were "misquoted." Bureaucracy has become a dangerous game.

Racing towards destination unknown
By Wesley Pruden
OPINION/ANALYSIS:
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
FRIDAY, 29 JANUARY 10
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

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

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.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

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. BUT if you are really convinced of the value of the COLB (certificate of live birth) that Obama posted on his website, see this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9830547/Sun-Yatsen-Certification-of-Live-Birth-in-Hawaii

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother 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, January 28, 2010

JUSTICE ALITO SAYS "NOT SO" TO OBAMA'S GOOF IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

Supreme Court justices sit stoically as Democratic leaders behind them rise Wednesday night to applaud President Obama's attack on the court's recent decision re campaign contributions.

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

The Court: In Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie," the pantomimist Marcel Marceau hilariously uttered the film's only audible word — "Non!" — when asked if he'd appear in it. The State of the Union contained such a moment.

Thanks to Justice Samuel Alito, who merely mouthed what appeared to be the words "Not true," the president's sense of decorum — not to mention his celebrated grasp of constitutional law — was called into question. Hilariously, too.

In the chilly House chamber, the president was somewhere in the middle of his stemwinder when he arrived at the sentences on his teleprompter written to attack the Supreme Court.
"With all due deference to the separation of powers," he began, "(the court last week) reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections."

The berobed justices, as they traditionally do, sat directly in front of him, keeping straight-faced, their hands motionless so as not to betray an actionable opinion. All, that is, except Alito, who seemed to be channeling the spirit of Marceau.

He couldn't contain it, the cameras caught it, and within minutes of the speech's end the scene went viral. It's now the single most memorable moment from a night of rhetorical excess that only Alito's silent gesture could punctuate.

Now Washington's keepers of decorum are tut-tutting Alito's federalist-mannered reaction, finding it almost as scandalous as Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's shout of "You lie!" as the president was similarly explaining his policies last September.

We all know the footnote to that outburst: Wilson apologized but reaped huge rewards from sympathetic financial contributors.

Alito is not positioned to receive contributions, which leads to a key difference: The long-established protocol at State of the Union events is that the justices, even there exercising judicial restraint, appear as a matter of courtesy.

Likewise, the Joint Chiefs of Staff show up, sitting stony-faced as presidents occasionally set impossibly naive missions for them.

Only senators and representatives are, by tradition, allowed to whoop it up in response to the president's oratory.

So when Obama targeted the Supremes, he attacked targets that couldn't answer. Except Alito, who reached into his quiver and found the now-famous silent objection.

The late conservative political scientist Willmoore Kendall argued that all three branches of government should be able to criticize each other. Indeed, some of the president's defenders point out that recent Republican chief executives have in their own congressional speeches attacked Roe v. Wade, the high court's 1973 decision to legalize abortion.

But those criticisms never landed on a decision so raw as this one, in a matter of days after the ruling, and crafted in such a way as to humiliate the justices before a national TV audience.

And there's that matter of factuality, so crucial to the president's sense of himself. Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission left untouched the regulation against foreign money in political campaigns. The president and his speechwriters could benefit from a fact checker.
To be sure, President Obama may well be foreshadowing the qualifications he expects in his next Supreme Court appointee.

But his tactic may just backfire, as the hitherto swing votes, and maybe even a left-leaning justice or two, rally silently to the defense of their constitutionally essential institution.

The President's Pantomimist
INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY
THURSDAY, 28 JANUARY 10
**************************************

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.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

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. BUT if you are really convinced of the value of the COLB (certificate of live birth) that Obama posted on his website, see this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9830547/Sun-Yatsen-Certification-of-Live-Birth-in-Hawaii

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother 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

WHEN WILL THE REPUBLICANS READ AND UNDERSTAND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES ?

"The duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence, or defence; for the redress of grievances, or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people." --Justice Joseph Story

The ObamaPrompter
In the wake of Barack Hussein Obama's first State of the Union address, much of the critical analysis from Republicans posited that he should do "this" instead of "that."
Unfortunately, when there is no more constitutional authority for a president to do this rather than that, Republicans fail to distinguish themselves from Democrats since both parties are then advocating unlawful extra-constitutional policies.
Obama's SOTU teleprompters fed him a steady stream of poll-tested rhetoric, none of which comports with the authority granted the Executive Branch, unless, of course, one subscribes to the adulterated "living constitution" as amended by judicial diktat.
Predictably, Obama offered only Socialist solutions to all ills, and not a single suggestion that individual responsibility or the private sector economy should shoulder that burden, at least not without government "incentives," a.k.a. centralized social and economic planning.
In 6,200 words (second longest SOTU after Bill Clinton -- two narcissists who just can't hear enough of themselves), Obama referred to himself repeatedly, and alleged that he was the anointed spokesman for "we," the American people, more than 100 times.
On the other hand, he mentioned the Constitution only twice.
First, in his opening remarks Obama said, "Our Constitution declares that from time to time the president shall give to Congress information about the state of our union."
Correct.
Second, he asserted, "We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution, the notion that we're all created equal..."
As the Internet meme goes these days: FAIL! Uh, uh, uh, -- that "notion" was enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, third paragraph, first sentence. One would think that this alleged professor of "Constitutional Law" at the University of Chicago Law School would have noticed such a simple, yet substantial, error.
Our Constitution is devoted to clearly delineating the limited role of the central government from the unlimited rights of the states and the people.
To that end, James Madison, author of our Constitution, wrote, "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."
Accordingly, Obama mentions freedom only once, and made absolutely no reference to liberty.
Nowhere in our Constitution is there any authority or provision for these key proposals from Obama's SOTU:
1. The power to further centralize regulation of our economy.
2. The power to completely regulate our national health care system. (Note: both the Democrat and Republican proposals lack constitutional authority). Obama even repeated his claim that the American people are just not smart enough to get on board: "I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people."
3. The power to further regulate and tax the production of CO2.
Obama reiterated his claims that the current recession was caused by "Wall Street," and then went on to insist that the only hope for ending the recession was government "investment," a euphemism for taxing money out of the private sector, taking bureaucratic handling fees out, then giving it to political constituencies.
To correctly interpret Obama's SOTU, you need only filter everything he says through his foremost pledge that the his administration's charge is the "fundamental transformation of the United States of America."
That is a line Obama lifted from the primary architect of his Socialist platform, Robert Creamer, who had earlier proclaimed, "If Barack Obama is elected president, then we have the opportunity to fundamentally transform American politics and the economy."
It's likely that you've never heard of Bob Creamer, because Barack Obama is very adept at concealing his association with his Marxist patrons.
In his younger days, Obama was not concerned about such associations: "I chose my friends carefully," he wrote. "The more politically active black students; the foreign students; the Chicanos; the Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets."
But when he announced his aspirations to become a U.S. senator in 2004, Obama began to cover his tracks. He stopped associating publicly with Leftist colleagues and mentors such as Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Khalid al-Mansour, Rashid Khalidi, Bob Creamer and others.
Creamer is a member of Obama's Chicago mob, a fellow "community organizer" and disciple of Saul Alinsky. Like all of Obama's Chicago benefactors, Creamer believes that he is above the law, or, more appropriately, that he is the law in today's age of the rule of men. But like Tony Rezko, another of Obama's slick Chicago political backers, Creamer was caught with his hand in the till and was convicted of a felony (bank fraud) back in 2004 when Obama was a state senator. Creamer got a softball sentence, though: five months in a minimum-security facility for white-collar criminals and another 11 months of house arrest.
With all that time on his hands, Creamer authored a book, "How Progressives Can Win," which, along with Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," serves as the template for Obama's campaign to "fundamentally transform" America.
Obama didn't use the word "transform" in his SOTU, but he did insist that government must "lay a new foundation for long-term economic growth," under the pretense of "reform," in order to "give our people the government they deserve."
"I campaigned on the promise of change, change we can believe in. I know there are many Americans who aren't sure if they still believe that I can deliver it. I never suggested that change would be easy ... and when you try to do big things and make big changes, it stirs passions and controversy."
And well, it should.
Though Obama's efforts to nationalize the nation's health care sector have been temporarily stalled, he has no intention of giving up, announcing that he is redoubling his efforts to expand central government controls over the private sector under cover of "economic crisis." As White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
Leading up to his SOTU, Obama endeavored to portray himself as a fiscal conservative: "We can't continue to spend as if deficits don't have consequences, as if waste doesn't matter, as if the hard earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like monopoly money, that's what we've seen time and time again, Washington has become more concerned about the next election than the next generation."
This is subterfuge.
Obama endeavors to portray himself as a constitutional conservative: "We will lead in the observance of ... the rule of law. ... Don't mock the Constitution. Don't make fun of it. Don't suggest that it's not American to abide by what the Founding Fathers set up. It's worked pretty well for over 200 years."
This is deception.
Obama endeavors to portray himself as a resolute commander in chief. Regarding Operation Iraqi Freedom he decreed, "Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31st, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end." On Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, he declared, "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home." On the treatment of captive terrorists, he says, "I will restore America's moral standing." On the Long War with Jihadistan, Obama claims, "The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam."
This is farce.
Obama is a dangerous neophyte in matters of national security, and he shows no signs of improving.
If Republicans really want to defeat Obama's Leftist agenda, they need to adopt the tried and true conservative message founded on Essential Liberty. Only then can they truly take control of the debate.
And while Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's response to Obama's SOTU address was encouraging, the current crop of Republican leaders continues to play by Democrat rules, attempting to sell a dangerous and debilitating elixir: "We don't offend the Constitution as bad as they do."
Bottom line: Republicans must refocus on First Principles and govern accordingly.
Republicans can best distinguish themselves from Democrats by, first and foremost, honoring their sacred oath to "support and defend" our Constitution.
To that end, Obama declared, "If you abide by the law, you should be protected by it."
True, but on the other hand, if you are not going to abide by the law, you should be impeached.
P.S. If you are going to seat two police officers next to your wife in the gallery, the two who brought down the Ft. Hood jihadi terrorist, you might at least acknowledge them.
State of the Union: Obama v. Constitution
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
by Mark Alexander Publisher, PatriotPost.US
Thursday, 28 January 10

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

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.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

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. BUT if you are really convinced of the value of the COLB (certificate of live birth) that Obama posted on his website, see this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9830547/Sun-Yatsen-Certification-of-Live-Birth-in-Hawaii

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother 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

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

HOW ABOUT A ONE-TERM MEDIOCRE PRESIDENCY, MR. OBAMA?

THE BLOATED FEDERAL PAYROLL INVITES REVOLT BY ORDINARY PRIVATE CITIZENS

LAST MONTH, the US economy shed another 85,000 jobs.

It marked a miserable end to a calamitous year in which an estimated 4.2 million American jobs were liquidated, and the unemployment rate rose to 10 percent. In addition, more than 920,000 "discouraged workers" left the labor force entirely, having given up on finding work and therefore not included in official unemployment data.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans who do have jobs have been compelled to work part-time or at reduced wages; many others have not seen a raise in years.

But not everyone is having a rotten recession.

Since December 2007, when the current downturn began, the ranks of federal employees earning $100,000 and up has skyrocketed. According to a recent analysis by USA Today, federal workers making six-figure salaries – not including overtime and bonuses -- "jumped from 14 percent to 19 percent of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months." The surge has been especially pronounced among the highest-paid employees. At the Defense Department, for example, the number of civilian workers making $150,000 or more quintupled from 1,868 to 10,100. At the recession's start, the Transportation Department was paying only one person a salary of $170,000. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees were drawing paychecks of that size.

All the while, the federal government has been adding jobs at a 10,000-a-month clip. Between December 2007 and June 2009, federal payrolls exploded by nearly 10 percent. "Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring," USA Today observes, "during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector." And to add public-sector insult to the private-sector injury, data from the Office of Personnel Management show the average federal salary is now roughly $71,000 -- about 76 percent higher than the average private employee earns. (If benefits are included, the disparity is even greater.)

Needless to say, it isn't only at the federal level that government pay and perks increasingly outstrip those in the private sector. In states and municipalities across the country, public-employee pension costs are going through the roof.

In Ohio, a joint reporting effort by the state's eight largest newspapers found that even in a time of severe budget cuts, "one expense government leaders have not cut is pensions for their workers." The annual public pension tab in Ohio, currently $4.1 billion, is growing by around $700 million per year. "Retirement incomes for the most experienced government employees top out at 88 percent of their active-duty pay," writes James Nash of the Columbus Dispatch. "Unlike most private-sector workers, whose retirement is driven by the strength of the stock market and 401(k) plans, government employees' pensions are guaranteed."

Moreover, government retirees in Ohio enjoy taxpayer-provided health care, and in many cases can retire at age 48. Especially egregious are the "double-dippers" -- public employees who "retire" on a full pension while returning to work and collecting a paycheck. In 2009, double-dippers were paid nearly a billion dollars by Buckeye State public-pension systems.

Ohio is hardly unique. A public-pension tsunami is beginning to inundate government budgets at every level. As more and more of taxpayers' earnings are confiscated to fund outsize public-sector benefits, the backlash from the private sector will only grow angrier and more intense.

"We are about to get run over by a locomotive," warned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in his State of the State address this month. Over the past decade, he told lawmakers, pension costs for state employees swelled 2000 percent -- but revenues only increased 24 percent. The state has had to come up with funds to close that gap -- funds diverted from "our universities, our parks, and other government functions."

Public-employee unions fiercely defend their members' pay and pensions, of course, but even labor-friendly Democrats are starting to acknowledge the inevitable. "The deal used to be that civil servants were paid less than private sector workers in exchange for an understanding that they had job security for life," former San Francisco mayor and California Assembly speaker Willie Brown recently wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle. "But we politicians, pushed by our friends in labor, gradually expanded pay and benefits . . . while keeping the job protections and layering on incredibly generous retirement packages. . . . Talking about this is politically unpopular and potentially even career suicide for most officeholders. But at some point, someone is going to have to get honest about the fact."

A showdown is coming, and more likely sooner than later. Taxpayers will put up with a lot, but their patience has its limits.

Public-sector pay, private-sector backlash

by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
January 27, 2010

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6872/public-sector-pay-private-sector-backlash

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).

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

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.

Barack Hussein Obama Jr. is not eligible to be President of the United States because – according to public admissions made by him – his “birth status was governed” by the United Kingdom. Obama further admits he was a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies at birth.
Since Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was, if born in the state of Hawaii, a dual citizen, who – according to his own State Department – owed allegiance to the Queen of England and United Kingdom at the time of his birth – he cannot therefore be a “natural born” citizen of the US according to Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
His father, who did not live in the United States for more than a couple of years, was a subject/ciitizen
of Kenya/Great Britain at the time of Barack’s birth and afterwards, AND further, as Barack himself admitted on his website during the 2008 campaign, Barack was therefore born SUBJECT TO THE GOVERNANCE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

Here is a direct quote from Obama's "Fight the Smears/Fact Check" 2008 website:

‘When Barack Obama Jr. was born on Aug. 4,1961, in Honolulu, Kenya was a British colony, still part of the United Kingdom’s dwindling empire. As a Kenyan native, Barack Obama Sr. was a British subject whose citizenship status was governed by The British Nationality Act of 1948. That same act governed the status of Obama Sr.‘s children…’ “

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. BUT if you are really convinced of the value of the COLB (certificate of live birth) that Obama posted on his website, see this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/9830547/Sun-Yatsen-Certification-of-Live-Birth-in-Hawaii

Also, it is possible that he is not a United States
citizen at all through his mother 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, January 25, 2010

THAT MASSACHUSETTS PICKUP TRUCK

"What has [Scott] Brown done for us?

He just administered a stunning 'Tea Party Republican' thrashing to the 'Kennedy Liberal Democrats' in Massachusetts -- with Obamacare front and center as the core issue at hand. That's what. Forget any other spin you hear -- that is what just happened. That Brown did not stress the party or the term 'tea party' does not matter. His issues were right off of the tea parties' posters and out of the official GOP platform manual. Sure, Martha Coakley ran a horrible campaign. But Democrats win safe seats with horrible campaigns all the time. Brown ran a great campaign, but good candidates lose uphill battles all the time in places like Massachusetts. And no, MS-NBC, this was not a Tip O'Neil 'all politics are local' referendum on potholes and such. Thanks to big government liberals, no politics are local anymore. Not even an obscure congressional district known as NY-23. Every single seat may now hold the key to Washington's ability to reach into the homes and wallets and lives of every American for any reason they deem necessary. And that's what this was about, with health care as the key issue but only one of many concerns about intrusive government." --columnist C. Edmund Wright

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

"On December 16, 1773, several dozen colonists in Boston, angered by King George's financially ruinous tea tax, took action into their own hands. Dressed as Mohawk Indians, they snuck onto 3 British tea ships and dumped over 300 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. That revolt was said to have sparked the American Revolution. Last [Tuesday] night, the state of Massachusetts was the site of yet another revolt, only this time it was Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democratic Party, and President Obama, health care and health care reform that were thrown into the drink, following the stunning election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate. Yet on the eve of the election, the White House suggested ... that they would not moderate the president's policies, but in a fit of madness akin to King George's, would double down and strike a more combative tone. I have a feeling that over the next few days, the White House will want to ... amend their remarks. ... In response to the tea party protest, King George passed the 'Coercive Acts,' which was every bit as punishing as it sounds. Will King Barack respond to the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts with moderation and scrap health care or with madness and shove a coercive bill down America's collective throats?" --columnist Brian Doherty

***

"The stunning upset in Massachusetts should send shock waves through the Democratic Party nationwide. The people have spoken, yet again, with the election of Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate and as such, have soundly rejected the leadership of the president and the Democratically-controlled Congress. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey this past November should have been a wake-up call for Democrats. Democratic candidates were defeated because the people thought the candidates, like the leadership of the Democratic Party, were out of touch with the needs of the citizenry. While Republicans focused on the economy, job creation, deficit reduction and responsibility, Democrats were bogged down -- almost exclusively -- on health care, blaming Bush and defending their failed economic policies. ... The Democrats set forth an agenda that was 180 degrees opposite of what needed to be done and what the American people wanted to see done. The Democrats manufactured a 'crisis' on health care, when we have an honest to goodness economic crisis and recession -- the worst since the Great Depression. ... The American people are more than disappointed with the 'change' they got this past year and are worried about their future and the condition of the economy. But it's not over, the people will continue to let their frustration be known this coming November in the midterm elections." --Georgetown University professor Bradley Blakeman

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

"Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that [Martha] Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal -- of a man who had them swooning only a year ago -- something is going on beyond personality. That something is substance -- political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power -- even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can't even see is in your own interest. Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don't want it, could they possibly have a point? 'If you lose Massachusetts and that's not a wake-up call,' said moderate -- and sentient -- Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, 'there's no hope of waking up.' I say: Let them sleep." --columnist Charles Krauthammer

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

THE PATRIOT POST. COM

MONDAY, 25 JANUARY 10

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

Sunday, January 24, 2010

SCOTUS SHOOOTS DOWN McCAIN-FEINGOLD - FREEDOM LIVES

THE SUPREME COURT'S RULING last week in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was a triumph for the First Amendment. In clear and cogent language, five justices swept away the caste system under which some groups of citizens have been free to engage in vigorous and unfettered political speech while other groups face criminal penalties for doing the same thing. Overturning two of its precedents and much of the 2002 McCain-Feingold act, the court called their sweeping restrictions on corporate spending during election campaigns by the name they merit: censorship. When the government dictates "where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority, "it uses censorship to control thought. This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves."

Not surprisingly, some of the formerly privileged groups are reacting angrily to the court's blow for free speech. The New York Times, for example, promptly excoriated what it termed a "disastrous" decision, declaring that it that will "thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century" by freeing corporations to deploy "their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding."

In truth, the decision simply extends to all corporations the same First Amendment freedoms that media corporations -- such as The New York Times Co. -- take for granted. For-profit corporations that happen to be in the business of publishing or broadcasting are free to spend money supporting or opposing political candidates. Why shouldn't corporations in every other industry be equally free?

On the front page of Friday's Times, an article analyzing the impact of the court's decision was headlined, "Lobbies' New Power: Cross Us, And Our Cash Will Bury You." Sounds menacing. Yet newspapers, magazines, and TV networks deploy that power all the time, "burying" public officials (and countless other subjects) with hard-hitting journalism and commentary of every kind -- news stories, photographs, documentaries, exposés, endorsements. They may not always use their power wisely or fairly, but on the whole the marketplace of ideas is richer for their participation. If media corporations have a robust First Amendment right to be heard during political campaigns, every other kind of corporation does too.

Some of the attacks on the high court's ruling have been hysterical -- in both senses of the word. "SUPREME COURT UNDOES DEMOCRACY," wailed Public Citizen in bright-red, Armageddon-sized capital letters on its web site. Florida congressman Alan Grayson denounced Citizens United as "the worst Supreme Court decision since the Dred Scott case."

Such unhinged reactions to a ruling that extends free speech rights to all is a sad reminder of how far the left has moved from the First Amendment tradition of the 20^th century's great liberals. Kennedy's opinion quotes from a 1957 dissent by three of those liberals -- Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo Black, and Chief Justice Earl Warren:

"Under our Constitution it is We The People who are sovereign," they avowed. "The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. It is therefore important -- vitally important -- that all channels of communication be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community."

McCain-Feingold was an egregious affront to that principle of open communication. It made it a crime for any corporation -- big or little, for-profit or nonprofit -- to broadcast "electioneering communications" in the weeks leading up to an election, or to advocate the election or defeat of any candidate for federal office at any time. That meant, as the court pointed out, that under McCain-Feingold it would have constituted a felony for the Sierra Club to run an ad a month before Election Day exhorting viewers to disapprove of a congressman who favors logging in national forests. Or for the National Rifle Association to publish a book urging citizens to vote against an incumbent US senator because he endorsed a handgun ban. Or for the American Civil Liberties Union to put up a website telling the public to vote for a presidential candidate because he is a champion of civil liberties.

"These prohibitions are classic examples of censorship," wrote Justice Kennedy. Of course they are. Why did it take the court so long to say so? And why wasn't the opinion unanimous?

BY JEFF JACOBY

THE BOSTON GLOBE

SUNDAY, 24 JANUARY 10

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

(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).

Friday, January 22, 2010

OBAMA HAD NOTHING TO SAY IN MASSACHUSETTS BUT HE SAID IT ANYWAY

The president at a Jan. 17 campaign stop in Boston for Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley. The most striking aspect of his performance was... View Enlarged Image

So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is he overestimated you dumb rubes' ability to appreciate what he's been doing for you.

"That I do think is a mistake of mine," the president told ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we're making a good rational decision here, then people will get it."

But you schlubs aren't that smart. You didn't get it. And Barack Obama is determined to see that you do. So the president has decided that he needs to start "speaking directly to the American people".

Wait, wait! Come back! Don't all stampede for the hills! He gave only 158 interviews and 411 speeches in his first year (according to CBS News' Mark Knoller). That's more than any previous president — and maybe more than all of them put together.

But there may still be some show out there that didn't get its exclusive Obama interview — I believe the top-rated "Grain & Livestock Prices Report, 4 a.m. Update with Herb Torpormeister" on WZZZ-AM Dead Buzzard Gulch Junction's NewsTalk Leader is still waiting to hear back from the White House.

But what will the president be saying in all these extra interviews? In that interview about how he hadn't given enough interviews, he also explained to Stephanopoulos what that wacky Massachusetts election was all about:

"The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," said Obama. "People are angry and they're frustrated, not just because of what's happened in the last year or two years but what's happened over the last eight years."

Got it. People are so angry and frustrated at George W. Bush that they're voting for Republicans. In Massachusetts. Boy, I can't wait for that 159th interview.

Presumably, the president isn't stupid enough actually to believe what he said. But it's dispiriting to discover he's stupid enough to think we're stupid enough to believe it.

Searching For Droolers

So who's panting for that 412th speech? Not the American left. As Paul Krugman, the New York Times' "Conscience of a Liberal," put it: "He Wasn't The One We've Been Waiting For." Not the once-delirious Europeans, either. As the headline in Der Spiegel put it: "The World Bids Farewell To Obama."

And not any beleaguered Democrat candidates trying to turn things around in volatile swing states like, er, Massachusetts. The Barack Obama who showed up two days before Tuesday's election to help out Martha Coakley was a sad and diminished figure from the colossus of a year ago.

He had nothing to say, but he said it anyway. As he did with his Copenhagen pitch for the Olympics, he put his personal prestige on the line, raised the stakes, then failed to deliver. All those cool kids on his speechwriting team bogged him down in the usual leaden sludge. He went to the trouble of flying in to phone it in.

The most striking aspect of his performance was how unhappy he looked, as if he doesn't enjoy the job. You can understand why.

He ran as something he's not and never has been: A post-partisan centrist transformative healer. That'd be a difficult trick to pull off even for somebody with any prior executive experience, someone who'd run something, like a state, or even a town, or even a commercial fishing operation, like that poor chillbilly boob Sarah Palin.

At one point late in the 2008 campaign, when someone suggested that if Gov. Palin was "unqualified" then surely he was too, Obama pointed as evidence to the contrary his ability to run such an effective campaign. In other words, running for president was his main qualification for being president.

That was the story of his life: Wow! Look at this guy! Wouldn't it be great to have him as ... as community organizer, as state representative, as state senator, as United States senator. He was wafted ever upward, staying just long enough in each "job" to get another notch on the escutcheon, but never long enough to leave any trace.

The defining moment of his doomed attempt to prop up Martha Coakley was his peculiar obsession with Scott Brown's five-year-old pickup. "Forget the ads. Everybody can run slick ads," the president told an audience of out-of-state students at a private school. "Forget the truck. Everybody can buy a truck."

How they laughed! But what was striking was the thinking behind Obama's line: that anyone can buy a truck for a slick ad, that Brown's pickup was a prop — like the herd of cows Al Gore rented for a pastoral backdrop when he launched his first presidential campaign.

Or the "Iron Chef" TV episode featuring delicious, healthy recipes made with produce direct from Michelle Obama's "kitchen garden." The cameras filmed the various chefs meeting the first lady and picking choice organic delicacies from the White House crop, then for the cooking the show sent out for stunt-double vegetables from a grocery back in New York.

Viewed from Obama's perspective, why wouldn't you assume the truck's just part of the set? "In his world," wrote the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, "everything is political and everything is about appearances."

Howard Fineman, the increasingly loopy editor of the increasingly doomed Newsweek, took it a step further. The truck wasn't just any old prop, but a very particular kind. "In some places, there are codes, there are images," he told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. "You know, there are pickup trucks; you could say there was a racial aspect to it one way or another."

Ah, yes. Scott Brown has over 200,000 miles on his odometer. Man, he's racked up a lot of coded racism on that rig. But that's easy to do in notorious cross-burning KKK swamps like suburban Massachusetts.

Whenever aspiring writers ask me for advice, I usually tell 'em this: Don't just write there, do something. Learn how to shingle a roof, or tap-dance, or raise sled dogs. Because if you don't do anything, you wind up like Obama and Fineman — men for whom words are props and codes and metaphors but no longer expressive of anything real.

Right And Bereft

America is becoming a bilingual society, divided between those who think a pickup is a rugged vehicle useful for transporting heavy-duty items from A to B, and those who think a pickup is coded racism. Unfortunately, the latter group forms most of the Democrat-media one-party state currently running the country.

Can you imagine Bill Clinton being so stupid as to put down pickup trucks while standing next to John Kerry? And what's even more extraordinary is that those lines were written for Obama by paid professionals.

But fine, have it your way. Tuesday's vote was really a plea by a desperate people for even more Obama. We're going to need even more Obama teleprompters, even more Obama speeches, even more sonorous banalities unrelated to action, even more "Let me be clears" prefacing even more tinny generalities, on even more reams of even more double-spaced paper. And we're gonna need a really heavy duty rig to carry all that verbiage.

Maybe Scott Brown can sell 'em his truck.

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY

FRIDAY, 22 JANUARY 10

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The Huffington Riposte