It Has Already Started...

Reason with them? They put him in office!

This is all I have time for, I've been in Virginia Beach, playing with dolphins and SEALs...

The Shining City Upon a Hill...

In a different time, when the world was a dark and dangerous place, after a series of wars and murderous revolutions, Alexis de Tocqueville travelled to America  to see a land where there was peace and prosperity...and to find out why.  He wrote Democracy in America - to explain to Europe (specifically France) how and why the results of the American Revolution - were different.  He explained that our peace and prosperity - was based on liberty...

"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Thus it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things;it has predisposed men to endure them and often to look on them as benefits. 

After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

UNescabable...

UNAmerican...

The main goal of the much-touted, Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development: "a fundamental shift in the way we think and act."

UNequal...

--More than $2.1 trillion a year in wealth transfers from rich countries to poorer ones, in the name of fostering “green infrastructure, ” “climate adaptation” and other “green economy” measures.

--New carbon taxes for industrialized countries that could cost about $250 billion a year, or 0.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, by 2020. Other environmental taxes are mentioned, but not specified.

--Further unspecified price hikes that extend beyond fossil fuels to anything derived from agriculture, fisheries, forestry, or other kinds of land and water use, all of which would be radically reorganized. These cost changes would “contribute to a more level playing field between established, 'brown' technologies and newer, greener ones."

-- Major global social spending programs, including a "social protection floor" and "social safety nets" for the world's most vulnerable social groups for reasons of “equity.”

--Even more social benefits for those displaced by the green economy revolution—including those put out of work in undesirable fossil fuel industries. The benefits, called “investments,” would include “access to nutritious food, health services, education, training and retraining, and unemployment benefits."

--A guarantee that if those sweeping benefits weren’t enough, more would be granted. As one of the U.N. documents puts it: “Any adverse effects of changes in prices of goods and services vital to the welfare of vulnerable groups must be compensated for and new livelihood opportunities provided."

UNacceptable...

"The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The General Assembly approves the regular budget and determines the assessment for each member. This is broadly based on the relative capacity of each country to pay, as measured by their gross national income (GNI), with adjustments for external debt and low per capita income."

The United States of America officially funds 22% of the UN budget.  However...

"According to OMB, total U.S. contributions to the U.N. system were more than $6.347 billion in FY 2009. This is more than $1 billion more than total contributions as compiled by OMB for FY 2005, and it is indicative of the rising budgetary trends in the U.N. and the consequential demand on U.S. financial support.

The reporting requirement was instigated by the expansion of the U.N. system. The creation of new U.N.-affiliated bodies over the years that received independent financial support from the U.S. government made it increasingly difficult to calculate how much the U.S. provided to the U.N. system on an annual basis. Past estimates were based on contributions from the State Department to the U.N. system, but this was not comprehensive. Although the State Department is the largest source of U.S. funding to the U.N. system, it is not the sole source.

For instance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides funding to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Department of Energy provides funds to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Department of Health and Human Services provides funds to UNICEF. The State Department had no authority to require other departments to report these funding activities; therefore, estimates by the State Department on U.S. funding of the U.N. system generally failed to take them into account."

THE BOTTOM LINE:  We pay our taxes, so rich people in Washington can give them to rich people around the world.  Is Ron Paul so bad?

Justice...isn't a Multiple Choice Question

A Police Officer should be promoted based on:

1)  The color of his skin
2)  How he performs on a multiple choice test
3)  Job Performance
4)  The color of his skin, if it is not white

Answer Key:
If you chose 1, you are a racist
If you chose 2, you may already have been promoted
If you chose 3, you have never worked for the government

Chief Henry White*

If you chose 4, you must be a lawyer or law maker, congratulations

NJ Settles Police Dept Discrimination Suit

The federal government has reached a settlement with the state of New Jersey in a lawsuit alleging the state discriminated against black and Hispanic police officers.

The Department of Justice argued a written test New Jersey used since 2000 to rank candidates for promotion to the rank of police sergeant disproportionately excluded minority candidates. They also argued the tests weren't necessary to prove the candidates could do the job.The settlement requires the state to pay $1 million into a fund to reimburse those who were harmed. Those officers may also be given priority offers to become sergeants.

“Police officers, whose daily responsibilities include protecting the public and ensuring the safety of others, have the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of race or national origin on the job,” said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will challenge discrimination in employment on the basis of race or national origin, whether that discrimination is intentional or the result of promotional practices that have discriminatory impact. The department commends New Jersey for working to put in place new promotion procedures that comply with Title VII and to provide relief to those African-American and Hispanic officers who have been harmed by the prior practices challenged by the department.”

In accordance with this agreement, police departments will still have a multiple choice test to decide who promotes (standard practice across the country), only they will have TWO ranked lists to promote from - one list of 'minority' officers who did not previously do well, and one list of everybody else.  Once the first list is exhausted, they will begin promoting from the second list.

So, it wasn't the multiple choice test.  That was never proved to be, or even explained how it could be, discriminatory.  The ONLY thing that was proved, was that the ratio of white officers' vs minority officers' performance on the test was not equal to some set standard for ratios based on skin color.
There, that makes sense...

*Chief White is probably a great guy, and a good cop, his photo was chosen because his name is White.

Ah Yes...

"Before you judge a person, walk a mile in their shoes...then, when you judge them, you will be a mile away, and you will have their shoes."

He Said...He Said

The Obama administration announced yesterday more regulation of the oil industry (and a $52,000,000 price tag).  They want to further regulate the 'speculation' on the prices, so that investors (or 'speculators') can't drive the price of oil higher and make their profits off of the consumers.

However...

This conflicts with President Obama's and Energy Secretary Chu's statements that they WANT higher energy prices (oh, Algore ran on this same idea in 2000).  Why would they want higher prices?  So we will stop burning gas!  (See videos below)

Mr. President, why don't you work to lower the price, use up the "finite" resource as you call it, then we would be forced to drive our wind cars (since corn based fuel has turned out to be...uh, still BURNING things).

If you don't understand the "oil is a finite resource" argument - READ THIS

GOP vs DOPE...

Pay attention to how the MainStreamMedia portrays the vote on the "Buffet Rule":

CNN

Republicans, as expected, garnered enough support to reject Democrats' attempt to bring up the proposal for debate. The Democrats fell nine votes short. (The Sentate is 53 to 47, the Republicans didn't 'garner support' they voted Republican)

The bill would impose a minimum 30% effective federal tax rate on those with adjusted gross incomes above $1 million, although it phases in for those making between $1 million and $2 million. (No mention of the reason Republicans voted against it - that one group's idea of  'fairness' doesn't solve any economic problems)

Taxpayers subject to the Buffett Rule would still get a break for charitable deductions and could count both the income and payroll taxes they paid when calculating what they would owe under the Buffett Rule.  (Sounds friendly - why wouldn't the mean millionairs favor this? Do they hate charity?)

Democratic lawmakers argued the Buffett Rule would be a step toward fairness because it would ensure that no one earning more than $1 million ends up paying a lower effective federal tax rate than anyone in the middle class. (And this country was founded on what some people thought was 'fair'?)

If passed, the rule would ensure that millionaires "pay a fair share no matter what loopholes or special treatment lawmakers add to the code in the future," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat who introduced the bill.  (Lawmakers - isn't the Senate the lawmakers?  If they are changing the rules now, can't they just change them later - who voted for this lady...oh, Sheldon is a guy?)

 

MSNBC:

Democrats have tried to use the alleged unfairness of the tax code as a campaign weapon against GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who paid federal income tax of $3.2 million on income of nearly $21 million in 2011, for an effective tax rate of 15 percent. Much of Romney’s income came from capital gains on his investments. Capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, while the top marginal tax rate on earned income is 35 percent. (This is not fair, the Government only got 3.2 million dollars out of Romney's pile - which was a pile of money that had already been taxed several ways)

IN FAIRNESS, MSNBC also said this (in the 11th and 12th paragraphs):

According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, in 2011 taxpayers in the top one percent of the income distribution paid, on average, 24 percent of their income in federal incomes taxes. Taxpayers in the middle quintile of the income distribution paid, on average, 4.1 percent of their adjusted gross income in federal income taxes.

Whitehouse said on the Senate floor Monday that his bill would “restore some fairness to our tax system” and counteract what he called the “glaring tax inequity” of taxpayers such as Buffett, most of whose income comes from investments, paying a lower effective tax rate than people who earn most or all of their income from wages or salaries. (Uh, did Mr. Whitehouse read the previous paragraph? Reality matters.)

The War on Women...

This will be one of the themes of Obama's campaign.  The truth does not matter.  Facts do not matter.  It is a propaganda war.  In their minds, even if they lose battles, the battles are fought WHERE they want them. Prepare to see headlines, "Romney Defends Record: I Never Beat My Wife" 

Hopefully the Right is suited up for battle...

*Just so we are clear, I have been against Women's Suffrage for as long as I can remember...

"I will not raise taxes on anybody making more than..."

"The Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the president’s healthcare law..."

"...The law contains dozens of targeted appropriations to implement specific provisions. It also gave the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) a $1 billion implementation fund, to use as it sees fit. Republicans have called it a “slush fund.”

HHS plans to drain the entire fund by September — before the presidential election, and more than a year before most of the healthcare law takes effect. Roughly half of that money will ultimately go to the IRS...

The healthcare law includes a slew of new taxes and fees, some of which are already in effect. The tax agency wants to hire more than 300 new employees next year to cover those tax changes, such as the new fees on drug companies and insurance policies...

HHS has transferred almost $200 million to the IRS over the past two years and plans to transfer more than $300 million this year, according to figures provided by a congressional aide...

The IRS will also administer the most expensive piece of the new law — subsidies to help low-income people pay for insurance, which are structured as tax credits. The agency asked Congress to fund another 537 new employees dedicated to administering the new subsidies..."

Holder, with an H...

Why We Need Voter-ID Laws Now by John Fund

Judicial Activisim...

The President said Monday "...and I'd just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint—that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step."

Judicial Activism has nothing to do with striking down a law that was passed by Congress, as unconstitutional.  Judicial Activism is when judges use things (their own social values, laws from other constitutions, etc.) that are outside the Constitution (that they swore to defend) to determine law in the United States.

You would think a former Professor Lecturer on the Constitution would know the difference...

While some on the Left are agreeing with him, most scholars are acknowledging a 'mistatement' or simply turn to Supreme Court decisions they disagree with...uh, what was the question?

I think he does not like the Constitution...well he wants to change it...fundamentally