Since the founding of the United States of America, Liberty has been one of the great hallmarks of our beloved republic. It is one of the unalienable rights recognized in and protected be the U.S. Constitution. The blessed right to Liberty or (freedom with responsibility) entails the ability to believe, express, and practice one’s faith according to their own conscience. There liberties, however, are not absolute and must operate within the bounds of the law. So for the most part even today, when disagreements and controversies arise in the United States, they are battled in the free marketplace of ideas or resolved in a court of law governed by the laws enacted Congress and state legislatures. Those laws indiscriminately govern people of all races, religions, and social classes now living throughout America. They are required to comply with the United States Constitution.
One of the great stories of American history is how until recently, millions upon millions of legal immigrants came into this country and quickly assimilated themselves into the population. Growing up in Cleveland I saw firsthand the results of the grateful teeming masses who poured unto our shores. It is called Little Italy, where generations of a community of sovereign citizens whose ancestors came to America seeking a better life. To this very day their descendants are grateful that their grandparents and great grandparents chose to come to America.
Unfortunately, America is now being plagued with growing dedicated Muslim neighborhood bunkers that are increasingly ruled by shariah law. First of all, Shari’a law is a brutal war on women concept that is foreign to our society. The war on women shariah law way of death is not legally approved by most American authorities (although officials in Dearbornistan, MI have been rumored to look the other way while shariah law has been practiced there.) But it is still generally thought to be incompatible with the existing law of this land and, in numerous respects, contrary to natural justice.
Brutal, uncivilized, dedicated Muslim-shariah law was started approximately fourteen hundred years ago. The bitter illiterate prophet Mohamed is credited with the origins of Islam. He spread his dogma at the end of a sword. One thing that sets the Muslim-shariah concept apart from most other religions is that it not only covers one’s spiritual walk with a deity, but it is a vicious and cruel legal system. It entails a comprehensive code of law governing the total social, political, and economic lives of all Muslims that must be enforced by the state.
To this day, many Americans still stupidly believe there are moderate and so-called radical Islamic organizations. All the while, I have and still believe that a Muslim is either dedicated or non- practicing. Simply because the so-called moderate Muslims fully agree with their “radical” friends that using the freedoms we hold dear in America in order to gain control of America is the way to go. Muslim groups and communities in the U.S. the U.K., France and elsewhere have become bastions of bigoted bullies, who are by any means they deem necessary to gain more and more control of our republic.
I have no doubt that the Islamists are conspiring to overthrow our Constitutionally limited republic way of life. It is the goal of all dedicated Muslims to take over every society, including the United States of America. Every dedicated Muslim is waiting for the time to strike the unbelieving infidel, as they are instructed many times in their Qua-ran. To often, people in the media and in the judiciary do not understand or don’t desire to recognize the alarming threat the dedicated Islamists pose to our nation that has grown too soft for it’s own good.
The worldwide threat of brutal, political Islam now fully ensconced in the United States has become a major danger to our often gullible citizenry. The Islamic brutes have already begun forcing their insane ideology to force submission to Allah) not only in our America, but in numerous nations throughout the world. There are reams of documented evidence of the racist proclivities of the Islamists who as of this reading hold thousands of black slaves under the most horrid conditions imaginable. I find it ironic that the progressive American racist hunters don’t seem to be willing to target the racist Muslims for rebuke. I label them racist because dedicated muslims are instructed in their Quran to view black people as slaves and raisin heads.
In future columns I will feature more history regarding those who tell the world about the peaceful religion of Islam, while raping, beheading, drowning people for not being Muslim or for being black. In the meantime, my fellow Americans, drop political correctness like the bad habit it is and help rescue our republic from those who would kill us for sport. That is their way of spreading the message of the twisted mind of their long dead pedophile-prophet. If you are so inclined, please pray for the forgiveness of God almighty for the role any of us may have played in opening the door to the massive assault on this, still the greatest nation in the history of the world.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Islamic-Shariah.jpg377640Ron Edwardshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRon Edwards2015-06-26 05:59:282015-06-26 07:19:55Shariah Law: A Major Threat to American Civilization
There is no example in the history of the world of a civilization, culture, or country that has survived without an intact family unit.
Historically, this has meant father, mother, sister, brother, grandparents, and sometimes other extended family members. With the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution came what we now know as the nuclear family-father, mother, brother and sister.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, immigrants flooded into America in an effort to flee oppressive governments back home or to pursue greener pastures here.
It was implicitly understood that English was the de facto official language, being a good citizen was expected, and contributing to the betterment of America was one’s civic and moral obligation.
Children were taught to go to school, get a job, get married, and to raise a family. These principles served us pretty well as a nation until recently.
Now, I no longer know what it means to be an American.
People come to this country, legally and illegally, and refuse to speak English. Judges and politicians are redefining the family unit; gender is no longer determined at birth; the government is invading every aspect of both our public and private lives.
How is it possible for mankind to be so arrogant as to say their gender is no longer determined at birth, based on the anatomical features present when they are born?
Now that Mother Nature is getting up in age, she is beginning to make all sorts of mistakes. Boys born with penises are claiming to be girls; girls born with vaginas are now claiming to be boys.
Some are even going so far as to say there is no longer a thing called gender; there is no male or female; but rather one can “self-identify” from moment to moment as to what their gender is. Even President Obama has demonstrated his belief in this foolishness. A few months ago, he made bathrooms in the White House “gender neutral.” Bathrooms are no longer labeled as male or female. You can now choose which one to use based on how you “self-identify” at that moment.
I can’t help but be reminded of the Greek philosopher, Protagoras. I studied him while attending Oral Roberts University. He is considered the father of relativism, which basically said there are no absolutes.
Protagoras is best known for his statement, “Man is the measure of all things: of the things that are, that they are, of the things that are not, that they are not.” So this insidious notion of “self-identifying,” is an extension of Protagoras’ philosophy.
According to this view, there is no God or any higher power. Each individual is the all and be all of their existence. There is no common moral framework by which man should live by; every man lives by his on individual moral code.
By believing thus, a society loses the very glue that keeps a people united. Typically, language, moral values, and patriotism are some of those common threads that make a society cohesive.
I currently stand at five foot eight inches tall; but I currently self-identify as six foot eight inches tall, therefore, I should legally be recognized by that which I believe, regardless of whether it’s based on facts.
As crazy as the above sounds, is this not what Rachel Dolezal did. She is the White woman who is the head of the Spokane, Washington chapter of the NAACP. Last week she admitted that she was born White, but now she self-identifies as Black; thus, making her Black. Even on legal documents she has been listing her race as Black, though her own birth certificate states that she is White.
She should be prosecuted to every extent of the law and the NAACP should have fired her immediately.
But, as usual, the NAACP’s leadership showed why no one takes them seriously as an organization. Here is what their national office had to say about Dolezal, “One’s racial identity is not a qualifying criteria or disqualifying standard for NAACP leadership.” So, I guess lying is now a permitted quality for a leadership position with the NAACP.
Since there are no longer any absolutes, we now have a country where sex is no longer determined at birth and race is no longer determined by genetics or ancestry. I can claim to be seven feet tall, though I am only five foot eight; but yet have the legal standing of being a seven footer simply because I say it’s so.
Would you go to a medical professional who only “self-identifies” as a physician; having never attended medical school?
A society without rules is a society in chaos. You have little kids thinking they are homosexual; you have people in the country illegally who think they have a constitutional right to be here; entertainers like Kanye West and Omar Epps think it is OK for them to wear dresses.
Values are the DNA of a society and America has lost its values in the name of individual freedom. Freedom only works within the context of shared rules or beliefs.
The game of basketball is a good example. Everyone that plays the game agrees to a common set of rules by which the game is played. Within these rules are opportunities for individual players to express their uniqueness.
But without a common acceptance of the rules of the game, basketball cannot exist.
So it is with America; without common acceptance of rules dealing with sexuality, morals law & order, we will no longer exist as a society.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/sungho-choi-model-for-my-america-1993.jpg338600Raynard Jacksonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRaynard Jackson2015-06-15 10:19:572015-06-15 16:56:17America Has Lost Its Identity
When it comes to being employed by the government, membership has its privileges. How far do these privileges extend? It’s a question that is central to political philosophy. It is most poignantly addressed by one of my favorite pieces of writing, Frédéric Bastiat’s The Law (1850).
The same question is being debated on the streets in every U.S. city today. Videos of citizen abuse at the hands of the police are everywhere. It seems the cops have been empowered to do to us what we would never be allowed to do to each other. Some cases have made it to grand juries and trial juries. People are asking pointed questions regarding the relationship between the state and its citizens.
From the mainstream media to the courts, disagreement usually revolves around questions of the motivation, the character, and the behavior of police officers. Are they following the regulations? Abusing their authority? Motivated at some level by racism? Some would like to confront the related question: What level of citizen noncompliance justly prompts the police to use extreme force?
But there’s a question everyone wants to avoid here: Are the laws themselves just?
Many of the most famous beatings and killings at the hands of the police began with small infractions such a selling contraband cigarettes, evading criminal prosecution for the failure to pay child support, carrying knives, or small-time dealing of illegal substances. Then there are the many cases of asset forfeiture that never make it to YouTube, ongoing acts of plunder that aren’t flashy enough to inspire mass protests.
If the debate stays centered on police actions alone, we will never reach the core issue.
What is the law — and what should it be?
These are the bigger questions that are not yet part of public consciousness. Every law and regulation, no matter how small, is ultimately enforced by the threat of violence on the part of public authority. Laws are not “nudges”; they are mandates enforced by the legal use of coercion against person and property.
Bastiat tried to get people to think hard about what was happening and how the law had become an instrument of plunder and violence, rather than a protector of property and peace. If the law itself is not just, the result is social division and widespread discontent. The relationship between the rulers and the ruled becomes distorted, and a sense of systemic injustice pervades the culture. Bastiat observed this in horror in his time, and it’s a good description of our own:
The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
Further, and most poignantly in our time: “Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal.”
Indeed.
Whether this happens at a traffic stop, at the arbitrary hands of an angry cop, or due to a tax or regulation passed by a legislature doesn’t change the nature of what is happening.
Bastiat’s essay asks fundamental questions that most people go through life never having thought about. The problem is that most people accept the law as a given, a fundamental fact of life.
As a member of society, you obey or face the consequences. It is not safe to question why. This is because the enforcement arm of the law is the state, that peculiar agency with a unique power to use legal force against life and property. The state says what the law is — however this decision was made — and that settles it.
Bastiat could not accept this. He wanted to know what the law is, apart from what the state says it is. He saw that the purpose of law is, most fundamentally, to protect private property and life against invasion, or at least to ensure that justice is done in cases in which such invasions do take place.
This is hardly a unique idea; it is a summary of what philosophers, jurists, and theologians have thought in most times and places. It’s what most of us think, intuitively, that the law should be about. What makes Bastiat different is that he takes that next step, the one that opens the reader’s eyes as nothing else does. He subjects the state itself to the test of whether it complies with that idea of law.
He takes notice, even from the first paragraph, of the corruption that ensues when the state turns out to be a lawbreaker in the name of law keeping: the state does the very thing that law is supposed to prevent. Instead of protecting private property, it invades it. Instead of protecting life, it destroys it. Instead of guarding liberty, it violates it. And as the state advances and grows, it does these things ever more, until it threatens the well-being of society.
Even more tellingly, Bastiat observes that when you subject the state to the same standards that the law uses to judge relations between individuals, the state fails. He concludes that when this is the case, the law has been perverted in the hands of the governing elites. It is employed to do the very thing that the law is designed to prevent. The enforcer turns out to be the main violator of its own standards.
The law, wrote Bastiat, is supposed to protect property and person from arbitrary attack. When the law becomes a tool for providing legal cover for such attacks, as it has from Bastiat’s time to our own, its whole purpose has been turned upside down and inside out.
What Bastiat was seeking, as the embodiment of justice, was a consistent ethic of public life. The law should be the same for everyone. We should all obey the same rules. Neither the state nor any of its functionaries can be exempt from the rules they purport to enforce.
We cannot permit the state to judge itself by a different standard. Indeed, when Marilyn Mosby, Maryland’s state attorney, announced that the she was prosecuting the cops who beat and killed Freddie Gray, she struck a chord that resonated far and wide. She might be a left-liberal Democrat, and she might not share libertarian values across the board, but when she said, “no one is above the law,” she was echoing Bastiat and the entire liberal tradition.
What are the social consequences of having a different sets of laws, one for state agents and one for everyone else? Bastiat believed that the result is lawlessness:
As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder.
In this case, the law becomes a perpetual source of hatred and discord. It even “tends to destroy society itself.” Whether this destruction takes place in the controlled environment of a legislature, the routine quietude of the bureaucracy, or on the streets through looting does not change the essentials of what is happening.
What does this say about abuse at the hands of the police? According to Bastiat’s standard, the law should regard such abuse as the violation of another’s rights. Period.
The passion, the fire, the relentless logic of Bastiat’s monograph have the power to shake up any reader. Nothing is the same after you read The Law. That is why this essay is rightly famous. It is capable of shaking up whole systems of government and whole societies — a beautiful illustration of the pen’s power.
It is a habit of every generation to underestimate the importance and power of ideas. Yet the whole world that we live in is built by them. Nothing outside pure nature exists in this world that did not begin as an idea held by human beings. That’s why an essay like Bastiat’s is so powerful and important. It helps you see the injustices that surround us, which we are otherwise inclined to ignore. And it helps provide the response to them.
Seeing and explaining are the first steps to changing.
Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Digital Development at FEE, CLO of the startup Liberty.me, and editor at Laissez Faire Books. Author of five books, he speaks at FEE summer seminars and other events. His latest book is Bit by Bit: How P2P Is Freeing the World.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/police-e1433783824283.png317640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-06-08 13:18:262015-06-12 08:34:51What Bastiat Had to Say about Police Abuse by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Sadly, what’s happening in Baltimore shouldn’t surprise anyone.
You cannot have an environment where the political leaders leverage chaos for personal political gain and expect those on the side of law and order to sweep in and win the day. The real tragedy here is the growing fear now residing in the hearts of the good citizens of Baltimore, those being subjected to daily threats of deadly violence because of the disturbing and irresponsible actions of its political elite.
By now, most of us know the name Freddie Gray. But how many of us know the name Eladio Bennett or Kester Browne? And, how many of us have heard the name Shaquil Hinton? These are but a few of the more than 50 lives taken before their time since the death of Freddie Gray, yet their lives and untimely passing have drawn but a sliver of the attention paid to Freddie Gray.
We can’t help the good citizens of Baltimore, and America’s many struggling inner cities, if we are afraid to shine a spotlight on the real problem. The problem is an organized far-left cabal, which has hijacked the party of JFK, and an opposing political party with few leaders willing to confront them. The organized far-left has accurately calculated that they can leverage chaos and use it to place blame, and divide us into their (not our) pre-selected racial, cultural, religious, gender, and sexual preference silos. They also use this blame strategy to highlight the fictitious failings of our system of government, bed-rocked in freedom and individual liberty. Then, once the division and blame propaganda has set in, with few in the mainstream media willing to fight back against this narrative, they propose a better way “forward” where, conveniently, they are empowered, not you.
The new “way forward” relies on more of your money going to them through higher taxes and expensive government programs. It takes away your ability to make basic health care decisions for your family, and it orders your child to attend the school they choose, not the one you choose. If you were designing a system to fail then you couldn’t design it any better than this “way forward.”
It’s not just the political penalty we pay, where we lose control over our money through their relentless push for government empowerment subsequent to a crisis, we can also lose our lives. The complete lack of leadership in Baltimore and the constant apologies for lawbreakers who were given “room to destroy,” while ensuring an expedited rush to judgment for the police officers involved in the Freddie Gray incident, has broken what has made this country the global, historical exception; fidelity to process. Process, and the rule of law and order, has enabled us to prosper economically and become a global example for freedom and liberty. When this process breaks down and we become a country of rule by discretion, rather than rule by law, the entire system breaks down and it filters down to the police officers on the street.
Having been a law enforcement officer with the N.Y.P.D. and the U.S. Secret Service I have seen first-hand the dangers law enforcement officers knowingly face every day for little money, and even less accolades. All these men and women ask is that the cities and towns they have pledged to protect and serve grant them the same process and legal rights as the citizens they protect. I don’t know what happened behind those doors of the van Freddie Gray was placed in and, if it turns out that the officers involved committed a crime, then they should be prosecuted. But, when far-left legal scholars and conservative thought leaders agree that the charges leveled against the police officers by Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby were political, and not firmly based on evidence, then we have a serious problem.
Police officers are an intelligent lot and they see this street justice prosecution as a direct attack on their ability to fight crime. Police officers are given tremendous discretion to combat crime and do their jobs and they are not legally mandated to arrest every person for every violation of the law they witness. I can imagine a scenario where many of these formerly discretionary police actions for non-violent, nuisance-crime-type activities, are not happening because the officers feel that the city of Baltimore will not be on their side if a police action for public urination turns into a use-of-force scenario. Sadly, it is this man or woman, who is engaged in this nuisance crime, and who is not confronted by law enforcement, that is typically the one who walks out of the alley and robs, rapes or kills someone.
In short, politicians and government are the problem in Baltimore, not the citizens. Nothing will change in Baltimore until the political leaders, who worship at the altar of big government are replaced by those who believe that the future of Baltimore is in the hands of the liberty of its citizens, fidelity to the rule of law, order and process, and not the permission of its government.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review. The featured image of the Mayor of Baltimore is by Patrick Semansky | AP Photo.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/baltimore-lawmakers-e1433687828754.jpg323640Dan Bonginohttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDan Bongino2015-06-07 10:38:042015-06-12 08:16:52Baltimore Lawmakers, Not its Citizens, Are the Problem
Note the unanimous opposition to the freedom of speech and support for criminalizing criticism of Islam — and even for murdering those who insult Muhammad. All freely and openly expressed on a sunny day in Minneapolis.
The problems with this should be obvious, and it’s a sign of the fix we’re in that they aren’t. Who decides what speech is “intended to stir up hatred against a particular group”? Islamic supremacist groups such as Hamas-linked CAIR and other “Islamophobia”-mongers relentlessly claim that foes of jihad terror and Sharia supremacism are stirring up hatred against Muslims. This charge is entirely baseless, as any Muslim who sincerely rejects jihad terror and the imposition of Sharia in the West should be standing with us, and is welcome to do so.
But the key question here is, who decides? The allies and friends of those who believe, or claim to believe, that it is “inciting hatred” to oppose jihad terror and Sharia supremacism are in the corridors of power. If the Democrats succeed in criminalizing “hate speech,” there is no doubt that it will become illegal to speak honestly about the nature and magnitude of the jihad threat, and the jihadis will be able to advance unimpeded.
“Half of Democrats support a ban on hate speech,” YouGov, May 20, 2015 (thanks to Anne Crockett):
Most Americans support expanded federal hate crime laws, but are divided on banning hate speech
Since 1994 people convicted of federal crimes motivated by the ‘actual or perceived’ identity of victims have faced tougher sentences. Many other states had passed ‘hate crime’ statutes in earlier years, and in recent years many states have been adopting laws which make crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation of gender identity hate crimes which face tougher sentences, something the federal government did in 2009. Unlike much of the rest of the developed world, however, the United States does not make it a criminal offense for people to make statements which encourage hatred of particular groups. For example a prominent British columnist, Katie Hopkins, is being investigated by the police for referring to African migrants crossing the Mediterranean as ‘cockroaches’.
YouGov’s latest research shows that many Americans support making it a criminal offense to make public statements which would stir up hatred against particular groups of people. Americans narrowly support (41%) rather than oppose (37%) criminalizing hate speech, but this conceals a partisan divide. Most Democrats (51%) support criminalizing hate speech, with only 26% opposed. Independents (41% to 35%) and Republicans (47% to 37%) tend to oppose making it illegal to stir up hatred against particular groups.
Support for banning hate speech is also particularly strong among racial minorities. 62% of black Americans, and 50% of Hispanics support criminalizing comments which would stir up hatred. White Americans oppose a ban on hate speech 43% to 36%.
When it comes to crimes motivated by hatred, most Americans do back the current federal hate crime laws, including the expanded definition of hate crime passed in 2009. 56% of Americans back the federal law mandating tougher penalties for cimes motivated by race, religion or gender, and 51% support expanding that to include sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. Democrats (68%) tend to be much more supportive of the law than either independents and Republicans. Republicans (38% to 39%) are split over the expanded definition of hate crime, while independent tend to support (46%) rather than oppose (28%) it….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/speech.jpg429639Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2015-05-27 05:30:252015-06-12 08:51:41Half of Democrats support laws curtailing the freedom of speech
In March, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy bragged to a Senate Committee about the outpouring of public support for its proposed water regulations:
We have received over 1 million comments and 87.1 percent of those comments we have counted so far… are supportive of this rule.
No wonder EPA received so many public comments on its draft Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation; it helped drum them up, the New York Times reports:
In a campaign that tests the limits of federal lobbying law, the agency orchestrated a drive to counter political opposition from Republicans and enlist public support in concert with liberal environmental groups and a grass-roots organization aligned with President Obama.
The Obama administration is the first to give the E.P.A. a mandate to create broad public outreach campaigns, using the tactics of elections, in support of federal environmental regulations before they are final.
EPA fired up its propaganda machine to defend WOTUS after a host of critics–farmers, ranchers, home builders, thegolf industry, and other businesses pointed out how the rule will empower federal bureaucrats to regulate “wetlands, intermittent streams, ephemeral steams (those that only flow after a rainfall or snowmelt) , and man-made bodies of water like ditches, ponds, and canals.” They worry that WOTUS will federalize local land use decisions, and make it even harder to build things in America.
The Times describes one of EPA’s tactics:
The most contentious part of the E.P.A.’s campaign was deploying Thunderclap, a social media tool that spread the agency’s message to hundreds of thousands of people — a “virtual flash mob,” in the words of Travis Loop, the head of communications for E.P.A.’s water division.
EPA’s Thunderclap campaign said, “Clean water is important to me. I support EPA’s efforts to protect it for my health, my family, and my community,” and included a link to an EPA webpage (now unavailable) that directed the public to submit comments on the draft regulation. The effort reached 1.8 million people.
Whether what EPA did violated the Anti-Lobbying Act’s ban on agencies lobbying Congress, it certainly skirted the spirit of the law. The Times writes:
Federal law permits the president and political appointees, like the E.P.A. administrator, to promote government policy, or to support or oppose pending legislation.
But the Justice Department, in a series of legal opinions going back nearly three decades, has told federal agencies that they should not engage in substantial “grass-roots” lobbying, defined as “communications by executive officials directed to members of the public at large, or particular segments of the general public, intended to persuade them in turn to communicate with their elected representatives on some issue of concern to the executive.”
…
At minimum, the actions of the agency are highly unusual. “The agency is supposed to be more of an honest broker, not a partisan advocate in this process,” said Jeffrey W. Lubbers, a professor of practice in administrative law at the American University Washington College of Law and the author of the book “A Guide to Federal Agency Rulemaking.”
“I have not seen before from a federal agency this stark of an effort to generate endorsements of a proposal during the open comment period,” he said.
It appears the Thunderclap campaign violated the spirit of internal EPA policy. A 2010 memo on indirect lobbyingfrom EPA’s general counsel states:
EPA employees may not explicitly or implicitly encourage the public to contact Congress in support of, or opposition to, a legislative proposal, nor explicitly encourage the public to contact state or local governments for that purpose.
EPA didn’t use the campaign to encourage the public to contact Congress. It instead asked the public to leave comments in support of WOTUS, which EPA Administrator McCarthy then referenced in testimony before Congress to claim overwhelming public support for the controversial rule.
EPA defends its actions. The Times quotes EPA’s Director of Communications for Water Travis Loop: “We are just borrowing new methods that have proven themselves as being effective.” In a blog post, Liz Purchia, Deputy Associate Administrator for EPA’s Office of Public Affairs, writes, “A public outreach effort to increase awareness and support of EPA’s proposed Clean Water Rule is well within the appropriate bounds of the agency’s mission to educate and engage Americans.”
It’s bad enough that EPA is engaging in such unprecedented regulatory overreach by crafting WOTUS, but its aggressive advocacy–perhaps too aggressive–shows that it’s an agency that’s out of control on multiple levels.
CORRECTION: An previous version of this post stated that EPA staffer Travis Loop was a “former campaign operative for President Obama’s Presidential campaign.” That’s incorrect. It has been corrected, and I apologize for the error.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Photo credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bloomberg_ginamccarthy_news_conference_800px-e1432208973540.jpg426640Sean Hackbarthhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSean Hackbarth2015-05-21 07:50:352015-05-21 07:50:35What EPA Did to Sell Its Water Rule Might Have Skirted the Law
On Tuesday the Republican leadership will encourage the House and Senate to vote to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) Initiative; the bill is known as “Trade Promotion Authority” or TPA—when no one has even seen thousands of pages of Obama’s Secret Trade Bill —now the Republican leadership is saying “we will have to pass it to see what is in it”. The Republican leaders are planning to give Obama “Carte Blanche” to enter into “Fast-Track Trade Treaties” in “total secrecy” eventually with future countries like Cuba, Iran, China, Russia, etc., because Obama will be able to add other countries to this agreement, which is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, because it “short circuits the legislative process” which requires a two thirds majority vote of the US Senate to approve Treaties. Republican leaders are planning to give Obama unprecedented power to curtail Congressional checks and balances on Treaties, even while they have been watching him for 6 ½ years, violate Federal Immigration Laws, the U.S. Constitution, and Freedom of Religion for members of the U.S. Armed Forces.
The TPA Bill has many damaging provisions, among them, it will allow millions of foreign workers to be given visas to enter the US at a time when 104 million Americans are unemployed, the TPA will open the way to import dangerous foods products that will negatively affect the health of unsuspecting Americans, according to Congressman Alan Grayson (R-FL-9) it will ship millions of American jobs overseas, it will “force the U.S.” to abide by UN & EPA business destructive unproven climate change regulations, will “force the US” to abide by the UN’s Small Arms Trade Treaty(ATT) which was voted down by the US Senate & violates the 2nd Amendment’s provision that allows American citizens to purchase and sell their small arms, and it will force the US Congress to abide by every UN Treaty that undermines the sovereignty of the United States.
The TPA initially embraces 12 nations including the U.S., Peru, Chile, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Australia, Brunei, Darussalam, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Singapore; however there is a provision in the agreement that allows Obama to add other countries in the future, like Cuba, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Libya, Syria, etc. The TPA is a secret Obama Law, like the secret Obamacare Law, that will allow the free flow of Mexican, South American, and Asian workers to enter the US (not only will the southern border remain wide open, but the U.S. will no longer have any borders “at all”, or any barriers to entry), the millions of new entering foreign workers will willingly work for exceptionally lower wages under substandard conditions. Details in thousands of unread pages of this law have not been read or worked out, yet the Republican leadership is giving Obama “Fast-Track” authority to make any and all decisions in all and every treaty with the initial 12 countries and as many additional countries he decides on in the future without Senate ratification (all future trade treaties will no longer be subject to the Constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority of the US Senate for ratification). Republican leaders are enhancing Obama’s control of foreign policy, while making the Congress irrelevant.
In order to deal with the millions of Americans who will be losing their jobs because of the TPA Bill, under the radar, the Republican leadership of the House and Senate is crafting a bill to go along with TPA, known as the Trade Adjustment Assistance Bill to be passed on the same day the TPA Bill is passed—-it should more appropriately be entitled the “Put all American Workers on Welfare Bill Because of the TRPA Bill”. That new Trade Adjustment Assistance Bill specifically targets workers and farmers who lose their livelihood, because of this “Stupid TPA Bill” being promoted by the Republican leadership in Congress, which result in millions of Americans losing their jobs because of what Obama will authorize in secret “Trade Treaties” with foreign countries that will effectively be devastating to the labor movement and jobs in the United States.
Once Obama uses his “Fast-Track” authority to agree with UN Regulations, Congress would not be able to modify or amend those TPP provision entered into solely by Obama by himself, without Congressional involvement at all, and Obama’s individual decision would have the force of the “law of the land” under the U.S. Constitution. This proposed “living agreement” by Republican leaders in Congress will seriously undercut the re-employment of 104 million unemployed Americans, because as a “living agreement“, it would leave the southern border of the U.S. to be even more porous than it is today, and will allow Obama to change immigration policy “at will” without Congressional approval—those proposed provisions of the TPA are absolutely UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Republican leaders are approving the massive immigration of Illegal Aliens from Mexico and 12 other countries.
The Republican leadership will surrender its authority to write Federal Immigration Laws by passing TPA, thus enabling Obama to use his pen to simply authorize the importation of millions of non-Christian Asian, Japanese, Malaysian, Brunei, Darussalam, Singapore, and eventually Chinese and Iranian workers. According to the Greek Catholic Relief Agency, for over 6 years, Obama has refused to allow any of the 300,000 Syrian and Assyrian Christian refugees in the Middle East to enter the US, while Canada has been resettling those Syrian and Assyrian Christians. Obama’s has only been allowing the entry of Muslim refugees thru the UN Muslim Refugees Resettlement Program, and has been intentionally excluded Christians. Now the Republican leadership is giving Obama the right to bring in millions of Asian immigrant workers who are also not of the Christian faith.
Obama has been resettling hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees in 195 cities across the nation without elected state and city officials being provided with specific details on who is being resettled in their cities, and without informing them who is going to pay for the health care, resettlement costs, transportation costs, education of refugee children, the welfare costs of refugee families, food stamps, and housing costs for hundreds of thousands of those Muslim refugees being brought into their communities.
Supporters of this aggressive secret Obama initiative include Democratic Progressives in Congress, Democratic Congressman Danny K. Davis who received an award from the Communist Party in 2012, David Cortright who is Obama’s close Chicago associate on the Committee for a Sane Nuclear policy (SANE), Communist Tom Hayden who is a member of “Progressives for Obama”, Democratic Congressmen in the “Hanoi Lobby” who are aggressively supporting normalization of relations with Cuba, Cora Weiss who is a strong supporter of Communism & a member of the Anti-War Movement, Adam Hersh from the liberal Center for American Progress, the left of center liberal media establishment, and the Democratic Progressive Caucus. Those Leftists, Marxists, Progressives, and Communists, have been getting the very aggressive support of the Republican leadership in the House and Senate, who have been working with the Democratic Progressive Caucus in Congress to pass the TPA (the 70 member Caucus includes Socialists, Progressives, Marxists, and Communists members of Congress).
The AFL-CIO Unions are on solid footing in their opposition to this “Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority”. Responsible and clear thinking Democrats in Congress are against giving Obama “Fast-Track” authority over this labor damaging bill, which will allow millions of new workers to enter the US, will force the Congress to abide by environmental protection standards that will restrict business development & job growth, will allow currency manipulation, and will allow millions of new Mexican Illegal Alien workers to legally enter & work in the United State. The Republican leaders in Congress should use some degree of “Common Sense” and wait for 19 months, before they give the occupant in the Oval Office any trade promotion authority, and only if that trade authority is very limited. Hopefully the new occupant of the Oval Office, unlike Obama, will be a pro-American president who supports and abides by the provisions of the US Constitution.
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions has alerted the American people about the dangers of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) speeding through Congress and the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal that TPA would help push. Senator Sessions said, “The president has circumvented Congress on immigration with serial regularity. But the TPA would yield new power to the executive to alter admissions while subtracting Congressional checks against those actions,” said in a “critical alert” dispatched by Senator Session’s office. Senator Sessions and several outside groups said Obama could change immigration policies between trading partners“at will” without any Congressional oversight. “The plain language of TPA provides avenues for Obama and trading partners to facilitate the expanded movement of foreign workers into the U.S. — including issuing visitor visas that are used as worker visas,” said Senator Sessions. The bases of that charge is a phrase in TPA calling it a “living agreement.” Sessions said that means that they can be changed after Congress approves them, and also that countries can be added in the future, including China. “It leaves it open for a president to change it without Congressional approval,” warned Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies. “Congress should not surrender its authority to write immigration laws to either the executive branch, to trade negotiators, and definitely not to international trade tribunals,” she added.
The Republican Leadership of the House and Senate are planning to give Obama free rein with “Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority”, with full the knowledge of Obama’s very dangerous anti-American track record, and his pro-Marxist/Communist initiatives. Even the most casual observer of Obama’s dangerous foreign policy initiatives can’t help but understand that, in the past 6 ½ years, Obama foreign policy decisions have consistently favored the enemies of the Republic like Radical Islamic Terrorists in Libya, Communist China, Communist North Vietnam, ant-America Iran, The Muslim Brotherhood, Chavez’s Socialist Venezuela, Castro’s Communist Cuba, and Putin’s Russia—they have all collectively and repeatedly expressed their intent to destroy the Republic as it was created by the Founding Fathers.
A newly elected pro-American Patriotic U.S. President would judiciously apply trade promotion authority negotiating by entering into separate Trade Treaties with 12 Asian and South American countries, while abiding by the provision of the U.S. Constitution that requires a two thirds majority vote of the U.S. Senate to approve each treaty. The American people need to rise up and oppose Obama’s secret TPA Bill by calling their Senate representatives at (202) 224-3121 and by sending FaxGrams to their Senate and Congressional representatives telling them to reject Obama’s “Fast-Track” authority which will permit Obama to enter into and force the Congress to abide by all UN Treaties, and will also permit Obama to enter into future secret treaties with countries such as Cuba, China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, Syria, etc.—this most recent initiative by Republican leadership in the House and Senate, following their unwise funding of Obamacare and illegal Immigration & wide open border policies thru September 2015, is approaching insanity and would be akin to allowing the fox into the chicken coop.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/McConnell-Boehner-Cantor.jpg396594Joseph R. Johnhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJoseph R. John2015-05-11 07:53:162015-05-11 08:12:19Republican Congressional Leaders Grant Obama “Unconstitutional” Authority to By-Pass Congress in Approving Treaties
The difference between the Article 5 convention and nullification is like the difference between a pop gun and a machine gun.
Nullification has stopping power. Article 5 is a genuflection to the federal power. It is simply writing more amendments for the Fed to ignore, absurdly pretending that the federal government is made up of sincere individuals who will obey the will of its citizens.
On the other hand, when a state nullifies a federal law, it is not asking the feds for anything or treating them as a body of sincere individuals. It is demanding, with a gun to the head of the unruly federal government. And that is the only way the fed can be made to back off.
Now some have reasoned that there are legal limits to nullification. However, if individuals have the right to civil disobedience, then so do the states. This goes further than mere nullification of a law by a state court. This is one step before insurrection, and judging by their actions in the past, particularly the way they backed off in the Bundy ranch standoff, the feds would not dare to go into a state and enforce their law at gunpoint because they know that such would lead to a new American revolution.
The Feds would then no doubt do what they are doing to Russia, ie, impose sanctions. But the state that used the “civil disobedience” approach could also fight back by withholding funds to the feds, much in the way that Russia is imposing sanctions of its own. They could, for example, temporarily release their citizens from the obligation to pay federal taxes, enjoining them to pay the funds to the states instead but reducing the overall amount.
There is no doubt that this would work, though causing some temporary hardship. It is all up to the American people. They need to wake up and realize that Washington is the enemy, by definition, and that desperate times demand desperate measures.
One very important use of civil disobedience would be for states to man up and refuse to admit anyone into their state who entered the US illegally, regardless of federal laws to the contrary. Initially, this would constitute nullification in the original sense, where the state would decide, on the basis of Article 4, Section 4, that the federal government was acting unconstitutionally to award legal residence to invaders.
The argument is straightforward and logical: The Constitution was a contract signed by the state representatives. By analogy with contract law, both parties must comply with each clause under penalty of dissolution or partial dissolution of the contract. The state could rightfully argue that it was induced at the founding of our nation to enter into a contract that provided protection but that the protection had been unlawfully withheld, thereby leading to dissolution of all or part of the contract.
Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution enjoins the federal government to protect the States against invasion. By refusing to allot sufficient funds and manpower to the protection of the southern border and by restricting the ability of the Border Patrol to arrest lawbreakers, by releasing apprehended illegal border crossers back into the US, by releasing convicted illegal alien criminals back onto the US streets after they have served their time rather than deporting them, and by rewarding lawbreakers with temporary or permanent residency using a variety of tricks such as allowing them to serve in the military in exchange for residency, the federal government has not only failed to protect the states from invasion as mandated by the Constitution, but has in fact aided and abetted the invaders and has thereby rendered itself an outlaw government that need no longer be obeyed but must in fact be resisted.
In case any reader should doubt that the massive immigration from the southern border constitutes an actual invasion, they need only read the article in Business Insider showing that of the 13 most dangerous street gangs in America, a full 10 are Hispanic. The most dangerous and violent of these is Mara Salvatrucha. To get a graphic portrayal of this gang’s behavior, you need only view the below video. But be forewarned. It is brutally violent and not for the weak hearted. And what you see there is a direct result of unconstitutional federal policies.
If the Supreme Court decided that, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary (only a smattering of which is presented at the linked sources), the massive influx of illegals does not meet the definition of an invasion, and that this was a wrong interpretation of the Constitution by the state in question, then it would be up to the state to implement “state-level civil disobedience,” averring that, in this decision, the Supreme Court represents only the federal government, a narrow interest group – thereby denying the states and their citizens equal protection under the law – to the detriment of the states.
State borders would become sovereign again, as they should have been in the first place.
“Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s repugnances are today calmly accepted — though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it.” — Leon Kass
First, let me say how happy I am to have my column back at the Freeman. I look forward to being here every other week alongside Sandy Ikeda and Sarah Skwire.
If you’ve spent any time on the Internet in the last couple of weeks, you’ve found it abuzz with opinions on Indiana and gay rights. The passage of the state’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has generated all kinds of commentary from both left and right, and most of it is misguided or overwrought.
I’d like to offer a few of my own thoughts on these matters, which, I think, add up to a call for both tolerance and freedom of association — as well as a rejection of repugnance as the basis for public policy.
Tolerance lies at the core of the libertarian worldview. Living peacefully with each other means accepting our differences and allowing others to engage in behavior that we might dislike but that does not harm third parties. “Anything that’s peaceful” is our lodestar, as Leonard Read often reminded us. Such tolerance does not require that we associate with people we disagree with, only that we leave them in peace. And this idea cuts to the core of the debate in Indiana.
If, like me, you think that gays and lesbians are not doing anything harmful to anyone, and that they should be treated just like other human beings, you might call the behavior of those who refuse to, for example, provide photography services at a same-sex marriage “intolerant.” Perhaps it is, but those who have such views are not engaged in any attempt to prevent gays and lesbians from getting married — or anything else — by refusing to provide them with a service. They are, in fact, tolerating them, but also refusing to associate with them.
Tolerance does not mandate association.
Any idea of tolerance that mandates association will quickly get us into trouble. If, for example, you object to those who refuse to sell their products or services to gays and lesbians because homosexuality runs counter to their deeply held beliefs, would it not be a far worse form of intolerance to make it illegal for them to act on their religious beliefs? After all, your side is willing implicitly (or explicitly) to back its intolerance of religious convictions with coercion — you know, guns, fines, and prisons — while the other side’s intolerance involves only the simple and peaceful refusal to sell.
To repeat: those who refuse to sell are not preventing people from behaving peacefully; those who would make the refusal to sell illegal are.
If, like me, you are bothered by the behavior of those who won’t deal with gays or lesbians, you shouldn’t make matters worse by using state power to engage in true intolerance. Instead, demonstrate how much you really care about tolerance by using persuasion and disassociation to change the behavior you find intolerant.
To see how real tolerance, persuasion, and disassociation in civil society can work, consider this story from Texas. A narrow-minded store clerk objects to a mom letting her little girl wear a boy’s suit. Mom’s friends hear the story and then give the store bad reviews online. (And unlike the small, Christian-owned pizzeria in Indiana, no one threatened the owners or threatened to burn down the store, both of which would be crossing the line that separates real tolerance from coercion.) The store pulls its Facebook page after people leave critical comments. Mom was not actually “denied service,” because she immediately declared she wouldn’t patronize the store due to the clerk’s attitude.
What didn’t happen?
No one sued, used violence, called the police, or said, “there ought to be a law.” People used words, reputation, and the power of exit to persuade others of who was right and who was wrong. This is how it should work. We don’t need a law. The mom had choices and exercised them, and the clerk and store paid a price for indulging their views on gender stereotypes. This is peaceful conflict resolution involving the rights of expression, exit, and disassociation — no need to get the state involved. Tolerance, after all, does not mean we have to like everything everyone else does. It only means we can’t and shouldn’t stop them from doing anything that’s peaceful.
Too often, we try to make laws on the basis of our mere dislike for others’ behavior. As a favorite Internet meme of mine says, “Everything I like should be mandatory and everything I don’t like should be banned.” This sort of reaction to our repugnance at the behavior of others is a real danger to liberal societies.
Whether it involves outlawing peaceful behavior, forced association, or state-sponsored discrimination, using repugnance as the basis for enacting laws is itself repugnant. What we end up with, after all, is poisonous discourse and a social order that is increasingly coarse and uncivil.
Why are people threatening the owners of a small pizza shop in Indiana who, hypothetically, said they would peacefully refuse to cater a same-sex wedding? What underlies such threats is the belief that repugnance (in whatever form it takes) justifies coercion. That belief also helps explain why others are so vehemently opposed to giving same-sex couples legal equality. Whether it’s repugnance at people’s religious beliefs or repugnance at the thought of two people of the same sex being married, such an emotion does not suffice to trump fundamental freedoms.
Sacrificing fundamental constitutional rights and our commitment to equality before the law isn’t worth the warm glow of an ephemeral “victory.” The trade-off is simply too steep — as is the slippery slope it could put us on.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/freedom-of-disassociation-e1428840733873.jpg317640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2015-04-12 08:12:322015-04-12 08:19:16Freedom of Disassociation: Indiana Edition by STEVEN HORWITZ
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaring evidence which everybody has decided not to see” – Ayn Rand
Only the Arctic cold spell gripping the nation, the State of the Union Address (Obama didn’t want demonstrators to detract), and the facts presented in the Justice Department Report as a result of FBI Agents’ investigating of the Ferguson shooting, temporarily halted the nationally controlled anti-Police street demonstrations after over 6 months. The Justice Department report, submitted by FBI Agents tasked with the investigation, concluded that the white Police Officer’s shooting of Michael Brown was justified and in self-defense; the report failed to mention Eric Holder’s continued unjustified inflammatory racial bias. Although Holder’s Justice Department finally agreed with the Ferguson Grand Jury’s decision, the rioters in Ferguson this past Friday, stated they still did not have any knowledge of the Justice Department Report.
Fifteen minutes after the Ferguson Grand Jury decision acquitted a white Police Officer in Ferguson, MO for shooting a black criminal in self-defense, the nation witnessed Obama on a nationally televised address making inappropriate and subtle comments that fueled the violent street demonstration that erupted followed his comments on TV. Yet President Obama refuses to do a televised address to the nation to present the facts that the shooting was in self-defense, that would have calmed down the radical and Communist demonstrators to “cease and desist” and that the raised hands gesture never happened. The demonstrations continue, even this over this past week, resulting in two white Police Officers ambushed in an assassination attempt, because of the false narrative by President Obama, Attorney General Holder, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, NYC Mayor De Blasio, and the left of center liberal media establishment who continue to cover up the truth.
For them to correct the false narrative they previously publicized repeatedly on national news networks, and tamper down incendiary racial bias being promoted in street demonstrations against Police Officers——that the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Gardener were in fact justified, and were not motivated by white Police Officers with a racial animus toward black youth, would reveal their true racial animus over the last 6 months.
Obama, who is in a unique position to defuse the racial lies promulgated nationally for the last 6 months, that there is an epidemic of white Police Officers killing black youth by saying they are untrue, is still being supported so Obama’s radical supporters, anarchists, progressives, Socialists, Marxists, and Communists being bused in by Soros to keep anti-Police street demonstrations alive. Since the white Police Officer has been cleared by the Ferguson Grand Jury and Holder’s Justice Department, Obama, in order to maintain some degree of credibility, Obama is now telling his supporters in speeches around the nation, that the white Police Officer who was accused of an unjustified shooting, then cleared by Holder’s Justice Department, is subtly indicating that the white Police Officer somehow got away with the shooting of an innocent black youth, because he had a skillful defense team, insinuating that the white Police Officer was really still guilty. Obama’s refusal to inform street demonstrators that there was no racial animus in the Ferguson shooting continues to intentionally racially divide the nation, with the intent of Socializing/federalizing local and state police departments.
Facts do count, and the facts are that in Ferguson, MO, Michael Brown, viciously beat an elderly black man, committed a strong armed robbery of a petite black female shopkeeper, beat & tried to disarm a much smaller white Police Officer who was sitting in his patrol car, and then charged that same Police Officer a second time, that in his being shot in self-defense by the white Police Office. Obama honored that habitual black felon by dispatching a large White House delegation to his funeral in Ferguson, but Obama refused to send a large White House delegation to the funeral of Prime Minister Margret Thatcher like all other NATO and Commonwealth Allies had done.
President Obama has still not informed his followers that there was no racial component that led to the death of the two blacks felons, Michael Brown in Ferguson, and Eric Gardener in Staten Island, NY, who both had long criminal records. That they were both resisting lawful arrests by Police Officers in the streets, and ultimately their resistance to a lawful arrest led to a deadly force confrontation with Police Officers doing their jobs. Unfortunately, the press will continue to report the resistance of felons to lawful arrests by Police Officers in the streets, with resultant deadly force being used against the resisting party.
President Obama, AG Holder, and minority leaders have not been instructing fatherless minority youth involved in criminal activities, not to resist a lawful arrest orders by Police Officers in the street.
The anti-Police demonstrations have been supported since August 2014 by Radical leftists, progressives, the Communist Party USA, the Occupy Wall Street Organization, many of George Soros funded Socialist front groups like Missourians Organizing For Reform, the New Black Panther Party (who have been involved in terrorist training in Castro’ Cuba), the Weatherman Underground, and the New York Communities For Change (an ACORN renamed group) have been stoking the racial bias. They will continue to look for other Police shootings to get the radicals to continue demonstrating. The shooting of two white Police Officers in Ferguson this past week by a black felon and street demonstrator, is the direct result of the lies that were told over the last 6 months about Brown’s shooting.
The above listed organizations and individuals have been whipping demonstrators into a frenzy, and encouraging the premeditated and nationally coordinated street demonstrators, against Police Officers and the U.S. Justice System. There is a long term ulterior motive by the Obama administration, and that is to federalize state and local police forces. The Obama administration is responsible for encouraging the employment of Communist style propaganda techniques to broad brush white Police Officers as racist who are intent on harassing and killing blacks. They have been demanding that all Police Officers be retrained, and when that has occurred, they employed the Justice Department to enforce rules, that eventually take control of the police department leadership, with the threat of penalties if the police force is not retrained and hobbled by federal regulations.
The anti-Police Officer rhetoric turned deadly in Ferguson when 4 black youth beat a white man to death with hammers, then a black crowd of demonstrators in Ferguson beat a white women on the following day, and the following day an elderly white man trying to enter his car with an oxygen tank required to help him breath with, was beaten with his oxygen tank, and was run over with his own car (the left of center liberal media establishment covered up those atrocities by black demonstrators in wolf packs against innocent white victims in Ferguson). The emotionally charged protests against Police Officers in New York City also turned violent when black demonstrators in the street repeatedly chanted “What do you want? “Dead cops” and the demonstrators severally beat two white NYPD Detectives.
In the most recent national polls, 53% of Americans believe that the nation is embroiled in the worst racial strife that has existed in the Republic 60 years. It is a fact that 14% of the nation is made up of blacks, yet blacks commit 47% of all crimes in the United States. According to FBI statistics, blacks are 6 times more likely, as non-blacks, to kill Police Officers. Until the flagrant criminal activities perpetrated by black criminals ceases, Police Officers will have to enter minority communities to protect innocent black victims seeking police protection, and the tension between Police Officers and black criminal elements in black communities, will continue, The relatives of black criminals, black radical leaders, and elected black politicians will continue to blame white Police Officers for conflicts, when they are usually only responding to cries for help from innocent black victims in black communities; the story that Police Officers are only trying to do their job to “protect and defend” is seldom included in press releases.
On January 6,2015, two white New York City Police Officers who had responded to a robbery attempt, were ambushed and assassinated by a black convict with a long criminal record, who was also a radical black nationalist follower of Islam. The black convict with a long criminal record, had become inflamed by the ongoing street demonstrations in Ferguson, traveled to New York City, with the intent of assassinating members of New York’s “Thin Blue Line”, subsequently, Officer Rafael Ramos, NYPD and Officer Wenjian Liu, NYPD were gunned down by him. Obama has yet to make one single comment on national television about the tragedy of the assassination like the comments he made 15 minutes after the Grand Jury decision in Ferguson, MO, and Obama did not send a large White House delegation to the funerals of the two assassinated New York City Police Officers, like he sent to the funeral of Michael Brown in Ferguson.
By appointing Al Sharpton as the Presidential Adviser on “Race Relations,” and meeting with Sharpton in the White House over 80 times; while Sharpton was repeatedly degraded and lying about Police Officers, Obama kept the anti-Police Officer street demonstrations and racial strife alive. Malik Zulu Shabazz, the former leader of the New Black Panther Party, said the radical group will “build up an army” in 2015 to combat Police Officers, and he predicted coming events “that are gonna seem tragic to white America, may even shock our own consciences” including the killing of Police Officers. The above orchestrated threats against Police Officers further adds to the monumental damage the Obama administration has created in the fabric of the Republic, damage that will require Patriotic Americans to unravel once Obama is no longer in office.
On this week’s episode of the official broadcast of the New Black Panthers Party’s “Black Power Radio,” the former national chairman of the New Black Panther Party and current national president of Black Lawyers for Justice, Malik Zulu Shabazz said 2015 is the time to “build up that army” and go “to the gun range.”
“And Mister Malcolm X, he consistently teaches us self defense,” Shabazz said. “The most honorable Elijah Muhammad continuously teaches us self defense. The honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey teaches us self defense, and we know, our leader and our teacher the honorable Khalid Abdul Muhammad teaches us self defense. What am I saying? Right now it’s time to build up that army. Right now it’s time for us to build up those corps, those troops. It’s time to get strong. It’s time for lifting weights and working out and going to the gun range and all of that.”
There is no sinister national epidemic of white police officers harassing and killing black youth. There is a national epidemic of innocent blacks being murdered, once every 4 hours, by black criminals (2245 blacks killed by blacks annually).
Police Officers are the last line of defense between criminal elements bent on taking advantage of law abiding black and white citizens. In 2014, there were 15 ambush assassination attempts nationally against Police Officers, and nine successful assassinations of Police Officers in New York, Missouri, California, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, etc. In 2014, 114 Police Officer were killed in the line of duty.
We honor the dedicated members of the “Thin Blue Line” who have been assassinated by criminals whipped up into a frenzy by public comments of the aforementioned elected officials and minority leaders, that the fiery rhetoric of the left of center liberal media establishment continues to distort. We encourage all Americans to disregard the lies being promulgated by the Obama administration about white Police Officers and their attempt to trash the profession of law Enforcement, so they can try to federalize local and state police departments; “Support Your Local Law Enforcement Officers.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/police-officer-e1598865337773.jpg361640Joseph R. Johnhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJoseph R. John2015-03-16 04:57:052015-03-16 05:15:16President Obama’s Subtle Support for Anti-Police Street Demonstrations
There is a growing concern among law enforcement officers, as they face daily the criminal elements in their communities, that their political bosses, chain-of-command and communities are no supporting them. Police officers are concerned that they will be thrown under the bus in the name of race relations. This concern has turned into the “I Am Darren Wilson” movement. Three Portland, Washington police officers recently posted on their Facebook page the photo of a badge with a “I Am Darren Wilson” wrist band across it.
The reaction by Portland Police Chief Mike Reese, who ordered these officers to take down images posted on their Facebook pages of the Police Bureau’s badge, is indicative of who will support them when push comes to shove.
The worst fears of the “thin blue line” have now been realized. No one has their back.
Law enforcement officers have every right to defend themselves. Unlike some who believe there is nation wide shoot first and ask questions later policy, nothing could be further from the truth. Police officers are trained on when deadly force is permissible. Any time a police officer responds to a call there is at least one gun involved, that of the police officer. Other than our military, police officers are among the best trained on how and when to use their weapons.
Abandoning them in the name of racial equality or community outreach is a false notion.
There is a war raging on Main Street across America. The Ferguson protests involved 140 cities. Two New Black Panther members tried to bomb the St. Louis gateway arch. When you see these types of terrorist activities, what would you do? How would you respond? Who do you trust to respond?
If the police do not respond for fear of retribution, as in the case of Darren Wilson, then ordinary citizens are put in the position of either arming themselves, which they are, or letting their homes, churches and business burn to the ground.
Is this a race war? Certainly!
When the Ferguson coalition uses whites as human shields then we are talking race. These tactics are used by others such as Hamas in Gaza, the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
Is this what American is faced with, terrorism of a different variety? It appears so.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/darren-wilson-badge.jpg361640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2014-11-28 08:52:532014-11-29 07:11:11Birth of a Movement: ‘I am Darren Wilson’
People really need to read the U.S. Constitution. It says, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”
The Constitution makes no reference whatever to executive orders (EO). George Washington started the practice mostly because he had to. Traditionally executive orders have been treated by Congress as having the legal status of legislation, but only insofar as they apply to the management of how the government operates.
The Constitution makes it quite clear that the President has no power to enact laws, but as long as an EO does not unilaterally alter or negate existing legislation or run counter to the Constitution Congress usually accords it legitimacy. Those that do not honor the separation of powers have been struck down by the courts or by legislation that opposed them.
As is widely rumored and reported, if President Obama does attempt to issue amnesty to illegal aliens he would be over-riding or altering existing immigration law. He does not have the power to do that.
Such an executive order would be immediately challenged in the courts and if power in the Senate passes to the Republicans in the midterm elections, Congress would oppose it. With an eye on the 2016 elections, incumbent Democrats might not be willing to go along with an Obama amnesty EO.
Recent polls all demonstrate opposition to amnesty. In a September Investors Business Daily/TIPP poll 73% of the public said that Obama should work with Congress on immigration reform. After the invasion of an estimated 150,000 young people and others from Guatemala and San Salvador earlier this year, comprehensive immigration reform went from 54% approval last year to 48%.
When word leaked that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency had requested bids on a minimum of four million blank work permits and green cards a year for the next five years, there was an outcry in political and immigration policy circles. “There aren’t enough federal employees from here to Pluto to do adequate background checks on 34 million,” said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
In September, the Census Bureau released new data on the U.S. population finding that the nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) hit a record 41.3 million in July 2013, an increase of 1.4 million since July 2010. Since 2000, the immigrant population is up 10.2 million and double the number in 1990, nearly triple the number in 1980, and guadruple that in 1970, which it stood at 9.6 million.
It’s no secret President Obama has wanted to get as many immigrants as possible, especially those from south of the border, into America. He has winked at the laws that determine immigration and citizenship. In 2011 many believed he had “enacted” the Dream Act by EO, but he had not. His administration instead adopted a policy regarding the deportation of illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, granting them the option of applying for two-year work permits. Even conservatives could find some merit in this, allowing them to gain legal status and apply for citizenship.
The amnesty issue would play havoc prior to the November 4 midterm elections, so Obama will wait until after them to announce his intentions. I doubt he thinks an executive order will go unchallenged, but at that point it will not matter to him since he will not be running for reelection in 2016. His indifference to constitutional restraints on his power as President is well known.
On October 22 Iowa Rep. Steve King, a Republican, predicted Obama will “violate the Constitution, break the law and grant executive amnesty.”
“If the President takes this action,” said Rep. King, “ (that) he’s threatened to take we will have abandoned every pretext of the Constitution of the United States and if the American people take that setting down or lying down, then our constitutional republic has been destroyed.”
Rep. King is right, but the Obama EO will be challenged in the courts and in Congress. If that effort is opposed by Democrats in Congress, their midterm losses will barely rival what the 2016 election will hold for them.
If you believe the basic issue facing the world today is the Ebola pandemic, the Islamic State, an eminent financial collapse, famine, poverty, government corruption, climate change or war you would be wrong. Some times people can’t see the forest for the trees. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, then you can’t see the whole situation clearly because you’re looking too closely at small details, or because you’re too closely involved.
Rand, in her paper makes the case that, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” Rand defines these two principles as follows:
Individualism – Each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.
Collectivism – Each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.
I had read Ayn Rand’s paper and recently went to the movie theater to see “The Giver“, a film based on a 1993 young adult novel by Lois Lowry. The Giver is set in a society which is at first presented as a Utopian [Collectivist] society and gradually appears more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth and thirteenth years of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to “Sameness,” a plan that has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives.
One of the key quotes from The Giver is: We really have to protect people from wrong choices.
For Collectivists this is the key concept for their social system. Rand defines a social system as “a code of laws which men observe in order to live together.” For an individualist the power of society is “limited by the unalienable, individual rights of man.” For the Collectivist “the power of society is unlimited.”
There are several points in the film where the life of a new born child is taken, by lethal injection, because of a perceived defect that may negatively impact the collective. Ayn Rand wrote:
“Under individualism, it is illegal to kill the man and it is legal for him to protect himself. The law is on the side of the right.
Under collectivism, it is legal for the majority to kill a man and it is illegal for him to defend himself.
The law is on the side of a number.
In the first case, the law represents a moral principle.
In the second case, the law represents the idea that there are no moral principles, and men can do anything they please, provided there’s enough of them.
Rand gives examples of each principle. Individualism is embodied in the United States of America by the Declaration of Independence. The examples of Collectivism are the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Many are concerned that the United States is becoming a Collectivist society. Rand wrote, “When [Collectivism is] applied in practice, a principle which recognizes no morality and no individual rights, can result in nothing except brutality.” Rand notes:
Either the power of society is limited, or it is not. It can’t be both.
Rand and a growing number of Americans understand that the Constitution “is not a document that limits the rights of man – but a document that limits the power of society over man.” Rand defines a right as “that which can be exercised without anyone’s permission.” Inalienable rights means that, “Man cannot be forced to devote his life to the happiness of another man nor of any number of other men. It means that the collective cannot decide what is to be the purpose of man’s existence nor prescribe his choice of happiness.”
What is the shield that protects man’s inalienable rights? Moral Principles.
Rand wrote, “It is true that society can abandon moral principles and turn itself into a herd running amuck to destruction. Just as it is true that a man can cut his own throat any time he chooses. But a man cannot do this if wishes to survive. And society cannot abandon moral principles if it expects to exist… Without a moral code no proper human society is possible. Without the recognition of individual rights no moral code is possible.”
Rand concludes “there can be no social system which is a mixture of Individualism and Collectivism.”
You see the Ebola pandemic, the Islamic State, a financial collapse, famine, poverty, government corruption, climate change and war are all symptoms of Collectivism. The cure for each is Individualism.
RELATED VIDEO: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. perhaps expressed the ideal of individualism best in a three minute sermon titled “The Street Sweeper”. Many believe this was his greatest sermon.
EDITORS NOTE: To download a printable copy of Any Rand’s paper What is the Basic Issue in the World Today, click here. If you are looking for a holiday gift to give yourself, your children, grandchildren or a family member or friend may we suggest giving either the novel The Giver or a DVD of the film or both.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/the-giver.jpg358636Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2014-10-12 13:35:542014-10-23 07:54:44What is ‘the Basic Issue’ facing the World today?
The Obama White House and the world media are pre-occupied with Russian President Putin’s grab of the Ukrainian autonomous province of Crimea. There are undertones of “Back to the Future”- meaning a possible return to Cold War era geopolitics with Russia.
Despite that overriding ruckus there was a less well publicized series of events in the Persian Gulf region among members of the Gulf Cooperating Council (GCC). Does this spell trouble ahead for President Obama’s Middle East policies?
At the GCC meeting on March 5th in Riyadh, Qatar was effectively isolated by “sisterly” Sunni Arab states. The Emir of Qatar, a member of the GCC, has been prominent in supporting financial aid and assistance to Muslim Brotherhood (MB) affiliates in Egypt under Morsi, Hamas in Gaza and the Syrian Opposition Council, one of whose leaders is a dual American Syrian citizenLouay Safi.
Virtually on the heels of the squabble at the GCC gathering, Saudi King Abdullah announced decrees on Friday, March 7th. They listed the MB as a terrorist organization along with several AQ affiliates in Syria and Iraq, as well as Shia terrorist groups in North Yemen and in the oil rich Eastern Province. The latter are backed by both Iran’s Qod Force and Hezbollah. This should present problems and potential conflicts of interest for President Obama’s senior National Security advisor Robert Malley and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. Both of these men espouse outreach to the MB, Iran and proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.
This train wreck about to happen has been in development since the July 3, 2013 ouster by Egyptian Gen. al-Sisi of President Morsi in Egypt. Morsi was a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood endeavoring to create a Sharia compliant constitution with him as Emir. Egypt’s interim government in December 2013 outlawed the MB. This week an Egyptian court went after Hamas, the Gaza affiliate of the MB banning activities in Egypt. Following, the ouster of Morsi, Saudi Arabia and several of members of the GCC provided upwards of $12 billion in financial assistance to the interim Egyptian interim government. The stage now appears set for Gen. Abdel Fateh al-Sisi to run as the country’s President, a harkening back to the days of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the possible return of military autocracy in Egypt.
The flashpoint for the GCC isolation of Qatar was the notorious aged Egyptian MB preacher Yousuf al Qaradawi who had been in exile in Qatar before temporarily returning to Egypt in February 2011. He issued Fatwas for the reconquest of Al Quds (Jerusalem) and preached anti-Semitic hatred to crowds in Tahrir Square. In a January 2009 broadcast from Qatar, al Qaradawisaid about Jews: “kill them, down to the very last one.” While in Doha, Qatar he steadfastly refused to participate in annual International Interfaith Conferences.
A news report by Radaw noted the isolation of Qatar by “sisterly” Sunni Arab states because of the mischief of al Qaradawi and sanctuary provided by the Emir:
The Arab states of the lower Gulf are engaged in the latest and potentially most serious of their periodic family squabbles, which this week provoked three of them to withdraw their ambassadors from tiny Qatar.
The Qatar government expressed regret and surprise at Wednesday’s decision by the “sisterly countries” of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, but said it did not plan to retaliate by pulling out its own envoys.
All four states, together with Kuwait and Oman, are members of the GCC.
The official reason for the diplomatic spat is Qatar’s alleged failure to live up to a recent commitment not to interfere in the internal affairs of fellow GCC states.
The three conservative states are particularly distressed that Qatar continued to provide a platform for Yousuf Al Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Egyptian cleric, to use his fiery sermons to attack Saudi Arabia and the UAE despite Riyadh’s threat to freeze relations unless he was silenced.
The scope of King Abdullah’s terrorist designations was reported by Al-Jazeera:
Saudi Arabia has listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization along with two al-Qaeda-linked groups fighting in Syria.
The decree against the Brotherhood, whose Egyptian branch supported the deposed Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, was reported on Saudi state television on Friday.
Egypt in December listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, prompting the arrest of members and associates and forcing the Islamist group further underground.
Saudi Arabia also listed Jabhat al-Nusra, which is al-Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Sham) (ISIS), which has been disowned al-Qaeda, as “terrorist organizations”.
It also listed Shia Huthi rebels fighting in northern Yemen and the little-known internal Shia group, Hezbollah in the Hijaz.
Early in February, 2014, Ayman al Zawahiri at Al Qaeda Central announced that the global Islamic terrorist group had no association with ISIS, instead providing support for the Al Nusrah front fighting against the Assad regime in Syria. ISIS however has rampaged across the Anbar province in neighboring Iraq overtaking the Sunni town of Fallujah.
About the same time as the AQ ISIS declaration, King Abdullah had announced new counterterrorism policies that were directed against so-called reform movements in the Saudi Kingdom. The Washington Post reported the new law “states that any act that ‘undermines’ the state or society, including calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia, can be tried as an act of terrorism.” This Saudi law appears to be in violation of human rights taken for granted in the West, but clearly viewed as seditious in the autocratic and Sharia compliant Wahhabist Kingdom.
These latest Saudi initiatives could have significant implications for the Obama Administration and Secretary Kerry. Kerry is endeavoring to fashion an Israel- Palestinian final status agreement and resolution of the 37 month civil war in Syria. We noted earlier the presence of Louay Safi as spokesperson for the Syrian Opposition Council at the recent Geneva II plenum talks. Safi was Research Director at the northern Virginia- based MB supported International Islamic Institute of Thought. Moreover, he was also Leadership Development Director at the MB front, the Islamic Society of North America, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Federal Dallas trial and convictions of leaders of the Holy Land Foundation. The Muslim charity group had been accused of funneling upwards of $35 million to MB affiliate Hamas. Safi was also invited by the US Army Chief of Staff to lecture troops on Islam at Fort Hood in early December 2009 following the massacre perpetrated by Maj. Nidal Hassan a month earlier. Clearly, Safi’s rise to prominence in the Syrian Opposition Council is indicative of the MB controlling presence.
White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and senior National Security Aides were present at the May 2012 meetings of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar. They were engaged in outreach to MB officials from Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab states and facilitated assistance to ousted President Morsi. Obama Appointments of MB members, especially Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Policy, Arif Alikhan and Senior Advisory board member Mohamed Elibiary have been problematic. National Security Advisor Malley was a former Middle East foreign policy aide to President Clinton during the failed 2000 Camp David Israel-Palestinian negotiations between former Israeli PM Ehud Barak and the late Yassir Arafat. Malley had accused Israel of nixing the agreement, when it was evident that Arafat had purposely sabotaged it. Malley went on to become head of the Middle East and North African program of the International Crisis group and later advised then Senator Obama and was part of the President’s transition team. He holds views that may further complicate Administration Middle East policies. Malley propounded speaking with terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah as well as the MB. Malley, was recently appointed to the National Security Council. He has the portfolio for Israel -Palestinian peace talks and the Iran nuclear P5+1 diplomatic initiative.
Now that Egypt and Saudi Arabia have designated the MB as a terrorist group, would the Obama Administration dare follow their lead? How Messrs. McDonough, Malley and Secretary of State Kerry will contend with a plethora of problems arising from efforts by the Egyptian government and now the Saudi led GCC targeting the MB is a ‘puzzlement’.
