Unanimous: Obama Budget Defeated 414-0

In a rare instance of bipartisanship, President Barack Obama's reckless $3.6 trillion budget for next year was defeated 414-0 late last night on the House Floor.

Republicans said Democrats were afraid to vote for Obama's proposed tax increases and extra spending for energy and welfare. Democrats said Republicans had forced a vote on a version of Obama's budget that contained only its numbers, not the policies he would use to achieve them.

In February, Guy reported the dirty details of the Obama budget and even the Associated Press was willing to admit the Obama budget is anything but responsible.

Taking a pass on reining in government growth, President Barack Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year budget plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spending on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill. Though the Pentagon and a number of Cabinet agencies would get squeezed, Obama would leave the spiraling growth of health care programs for the elderly and the poor largely unchecked. The plan claims $4 trillion in deficit savings over the coming decade, but most of it would be through tax increases Republicans oppose, lower war costs already in motion and budget cuts enacted last year in a debt pact with GOP lawmakers.

Of course, the White House has brushed off the defeat as a "gimmick." Meanwhile, House Republicans are gearing up to pass Paul Ryan's latest Path to Prosperity.  click on this link to read the rest.  http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2012/03/29/unanimous_obama_budget_defeated_4140

The Future Looks Dim for Obamacare

Obamacare is probably NOT going to pass and that is a good thing for our Constitution and our freedoms.  This article in "New York News and Features" explains it well.

How Paul Clement Won the Supreme Court's Oral Arguments on Obamacare

Paul Clement has been receiving rave reviews for his performance during the second day of oral arguments over health-care reform before the Supreme Court. (“[T]he best argument I’ve ever heard,” SCOTUSblog Tom Goldstein raved on Twitter). But Clement’s finest moment may have come when he was completely silent.

A little more than two minutes into Solicitor General Donald Verilli’s turn at the bar, Justice Anthony Kennedy interrupted him: “Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?”

Kennedy’s query was an almost verbatim recital of Clement’s own talking point, part of the fundamental argument he has made against the individual mandate. In his brief to the Court, and later during his oral argument, he said Obama’s health-care law “represents an unprecedented effort by Congress to compel individuals to enter commerce in order to better regulate commerce.”

It’s a recasting of the original argument used by opponents of the mandate: that Congress has overstepped its constitutional authority by regulating inactivity rather than activity. As Clement explained to me a few weeks ago, “I wasn’t of the view that that was necessarily the best way to try to explain why this was unprecedented and why this was different, and that it might be more effective to kind of use the idea of basically forcing people to engage in commerce so that you can regulate the commerce.”

The fact that Kennedy — the Justice who many believe to be the swing vote in the health-care case — has apparently decided to view the case through this framework suggests just how effective Clement has been. It points to something else that Clement told me: that for all the sturm and drang surrounding these three days of oral arguments, the health-care case, like every Supreme Court case, will likely be won and lost in the briefs.

“I’m a big believer that oral argument makes a difference, but I’m also a big believer that comparably the briefs make even more of a difference,” Clement explained. “One way I think about it is, you start a case and maybe there’s a degree of skepticism that would generate 100 questions; nobody can answer 100 questions to the satisfaction of a skeptical justice in 30 minutes or whatever. But if you brief it really well and you kind of head off some of that at the pass and then you get it down to the point where even a skeptical justice only has a couple of questions, and you assume they’re really open to persuasion on those couple of questions, you’ve now kind of got it to a margin where the oral argument can make a difference.”

Seen through that lens, Clement has to be feeling pretty good about his experience at the Court earlier today. While he faced tough, bordering-on-hostile questions from the four liberal justices — most notably from Justice Steven Breyer, who seemed to be lecturing more than asking — the two justices who seem most open to persuasion by either side, Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts, were far tougher on Verilli. And when they did have questions for Clement, he handled them with aplomb.  (READ THE REST HERE).  

No To American Empire-Yes To American Republic - Let's NOT Forget That

American Empire Before the Fall by Bruce Fein is a must read for all concerned Americans who want to retain the America of freedom and love of country.  We must stand up and say enough before the Republic that was designed for maximum freedom and minimum government is turned on its head - and maybe it's too late.

The following is from Mr. Fein's book page 157 in the paperback:

Obama also covets unbounded presidential power to blunt natural and inevitable economic downturns through staggering federal spending and budget deficits...


Every Empire seeks to shield its people from economic shocks or dislocations by government interventions in pursuit of a risk-free existence....


Presidents in the American Empire bow to its orthodoxies because their preoccupation is day-to-day popularity and re-election.  Obama is no exception  He is no statesmanlike leader who breathes overarching convictions about defending and enforcing the Constitution irrespective of the immediate political fall-out.  Only a person of uncommon intellectual courage will defy the American Empire's political culture and disparage the primitive excitement of dominating other countries or people.  Obama has failed that test of courage over Afghanistan and at every other turn.


Expediency is Obama's North Star.  He was against the state secrets privilege to conceal constitutional wrongdoing, until he was in favor of it.  He was in favor of whistle-blower legislation covering intelligence agencies, until he was against it.  He was against presidential power to hold American citizens or residents as enemy combatants indefinitely without accusation of charge, until he was in favor of it.  He was favor of public financing of his presidential campaign, until he was against it.  He was against the death penalty for rape of children, until he was in favor of it.  He was in favor of releasing photos of United States interrogation abuses, until he was against it.  He was against individual Second Amendment rights to own handguns, until was in favor of it.  He was in favor of government  transparency, until he was against,.  He was against military commissions for the trial of war crimes, until he was in favor it.


A President who wished to restore the American Republic would assail unchecked executive power in favor of a separation of powers and checks and balances.  He would insist on the exclusive responsibility of Congress to decide whether to initiate war; acknowledge the sovereignty of "We the People" in lieu of an omnipotent executive branch; immediately withdraw all America troops from abroad and revoke all common defense treaties or executive agreements; treat international terrorists as criminal thugs, not warriors or combatants; and inculcate in ordinary citizens a pride in self-government and a recognition that securing unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for Americans is the sole mission of the United States.


As Mr. Fein continues he writes that Obama has done none of the above because he is a "mental prisoner of the American Empire.  Obama, as well as numerous other Presidents before him (Bush #1 and #2 come to mind) refuses to see that our country would be safer, freer and more prosperous by returning to our roots which is an AMERICAN REPUBLIC which used to confine the military to protecting the United States - period.

Bernanke The Inflation King

BERNANKE CAUGHT BETWEEN DECEPTION AND DEPRESSION

Amidst many widely followed data points that show that inflation, consumer spending, and employment levels are on the rise, today's FOMC statement conspicuously avoided any hint that monetary tightening is even being considered. Instead, the Fed indirectly patted itself on the back for some perceived economic gains without committing to any of the logical monetary steps that these improvements should have triggered. Their stance appears to remain that although a full recovery is nigh, the economy will remain dependent on near-zero interest rates through 2014. They hope that no one notices the contradiction.     

  

Some might suggest the Fed's failure to explicitly forecast QE3 is evidence that some degree of tightening is in the offing. They are grasping at straws. The Fed is running QE with or without an overt policy behind it, and will likely only show its hand if it feels it is necessary to prop up a faltering stock market, which currently we do not have.

Otherwise, the Fed would prefer to keep quiet about the flood of inflation it is creating. If it were to speak the name of this growing threat, it might be called on to stop it. But Chairman Bernanke knows that any policy designed to restrain inflation will also derail the phony recovery that the Fed has labored so hard to engineer. The higher rates needed to bring inflation under control, and knock down the price of oil for instance, would trigger a greater financial crisis than the one seen in 2008. read the rest at Townhall Finance.com

The Deceit of Barack Obama

If Obama's Past Isn't A Concern, Why Cover It Up?

Public Trust: The Beltway elite mock critics who say the president's hiding his radical past from voters. They say there's nothing there, move along. But if there's nothing to hide, why is so much hidden?

And if the White House isn't worried about the public seeing another side of President Obama, why is it trying to reinforce the image of him as a post-racial, pro-American moderate with a slick new Hollywood-produced 17-minute documentary?

The answer, of course, is that it is very much concerned.

The Obama campaign knows its carefully manicured narrative is wearing thin against the drip-drip-drip of revelations about his extremism. And it can't risk the incumbent being reintroduced to voters this election as an untrustworthy imposter who's hiding things about himself and his agenda.

Indeed, these are things that must be hidden from the average voter. They are unpatriotic and unelectable things. Things that would concern any red-blooded American, if not the parlor Bolsheviks inside the Beltway media and the Ivory Tower.

The videotape of Obama praising and hugging his America-bashing, Constitution-trashing law professor Derrick Bell isn't the only evidence that's been hidden from the public. A 1998 video of Obama praising the late Marxist agitator Saul "The Red" Alinsky alongside a panel of hard-core Chicago communists also exists. Yet it, too, has been withheld.

So has a 2003 video of Obama speaking at a Chicago dinner held in honor of former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi. Anger at Israel and U.S. foreign policy were expressed during the private banquet.

Why have Obama's remarks and actions during the controversial event been suppressed? Perhaps it's because the radical Khalidi — a close friend and neighbor of Obama, who held a 2000 political fundraiser in his home for him — has strongly defended the use of violence by Palestinians against Israel, while expressing clearly anti-American views.  READ THE REST HERE

Obama's Oil Scarcity Bolony!!

Scarce Oil? U.S. Has 60 Times More Than Obama Claims

By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 01:03 PM ET

When he was running for the Oval Office four years ago amid $4-a-gallon gasoline prices, then-Sen. Barack Obama dismissed the idea of expanded oil production as a way to relieve the pain at the pump ...Read the rest HERE at IBD.

Obama's Version of The Rule of Law

Obama Justifies FEMA imprisonment of civilians-indefinately!

The Real Argument Against Obamacare: Contractual Law

"Obamacare: Contract Killer" - Just when you think everything that can be said about Obamacare's constitutionality has been said, along comes another legal brief that makes a new point.

The latest was filed by the Arlington-based Institute for Justice, a nonpartisan, libertarian public-interest law firm. The institute points out that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate — the requirement to purchase insurance — is not only an unprecedented expansion of federal power. It also undermines several centuries of contract law.

From Hugo Grotius in the 17th century through William Story in the 19th and up to the present, legal doctrine has held that contracts are not valid unless they are entered into by mutual assent. If one party signs a contract as the result of fraud or under duress, it cannot be valid. But if Congress compels people to buy insurance policies — not as a precondition of exercising a privilege such as driving, but as a consequence of having been born — then, the institute argues, this would undermine centuries of contract law...READ HERE at Richmond Times Dispatch - "Obamacare:  Contract Killer".

George Washington's Farewell speech against entangling alliances

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the Public Councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

Good Intentions in Politics

Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own.  The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others--with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.  This message is one we should all ponder.  Henry Grady Weaver in "The Mainspring of Human Progress".

A State Dedicated to War - America

As we continue to face war and more war regardless, it seems, as to who is the current President of the United States (except Ron Paul who has been challenging the notion of constant warfare) Thomas DiLorenzo wrote "What You're Not Supposed to Know About War" at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.  Here is a sample of his essay about WAR.

  

It  is a testament to the power of government propaganda that several generations of self-described conservatives have held as their core belief that war and militarism are consistent with limited, constitutional government. These conservatives think they are "defending freedom" by supporting every military adventure that the state concocts. They are not.

Even just, defensive wars inevitably empower the state far beyond anything any strict constructionist would approve of. Prowar conservatives, in other words, are walking contradictions. They may pay lip service to limited constitutional government, but their prowar positions belie their rhetoric...

...The importance of understanding the political economy of war is perhaps illustrated by this passage from Randolph Bourne's famous essay:

War is a vast complex of life-destroying and life-crippling forces. If the State's chief function is war, then it is chiefly concerned with coordinating and developing the powers and techniques which make for destruction. And this means not only the actual and potential destruction of the enemy, but of the nation at home as well. For the very existence of a State in a system of States means that the nation lies always under a risk of war and invasion, and the calling away of energy into military pursuits means a crippling of the productive and life-enhancing processes of the national life.  CLICK on link above to read the whole essay.