IRS: “No Evidence Of Criminal Wrongdoing”

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“All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” – Sophocles

This week’s House Oversight Committee hearings on IRS targeting provided a unique visual spectacle at just how insular, defiant and confident the agency is in riding out the targeting scandal.

The agency’s star witness, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, smugly detailed how the agency “accidentally” lost two years of Lois Lerner and six other IRS employees’ emails.

fairtaxlostemails

Click on the image for a larger view.

The same emails that in March the Commissioner testified he would provide; emails sent by Lerner and team during the same period the political targeting of conservative non-profits and at least one U.S. Senator was well underway.

One particularly contentious exchange between Rep. Trey Gowdy and Commissioner Koskinen, highlighted what it is like for the American people when forced to deal with the IRS. After Commissioner Koskinen repeatedly states that he has found “no evidence of criminal wrongdoing” within the agency, Rep. Gowdy demands to know which criminal statutes he has examined to come to his conclusion. The Commissioner confidently answers none, yet boldly asserts that no criminal wrongdoing has taken place.

It is clear that as far as he is concerned, he and he alone has the final say as to what constitutes criminal wrongdoing within the IRS.   

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how an agency that Congress has allowed to operate with total and complete impunity condemns American taxpayers. If the IRS, for any reason, targets you they will act as your sole judge, jury and executioner as they met out their unchecked brand of enforcement justice.

Congress created this problem and Congress needs to now fix it. And fix it they can. There is a solution before them with 75 co-sponsors in the U.S. House – more than any other tax reform legislation. It is the FairTax® Plan. By replacing the current income tax system with the FairTax, the Congress can defund and eliminate the IRS and the systemic corruption that has plagued our nation and her people for 100 years.

The IRS cannot be fixed, repaired or rehabilitated. It is like a cancer upon this nation. Unless you eliminate every single cancer cell everywhere in the body, it will slowly destroy what it has invaded.

The FairTax is the only tax replacement plan that defunds, disbands and eliminates the IRS – in its entirety.

Now is the time for you to share the good news with the American people about the FairTax Plan. Recent polls show they are not buying what the IRS is saying about Lerner’s “lost” emails.

Don’t delay. Don’t loose this opportunity. Don’t wait another day to share this great news.

  • Contact everyone that you can think of – your friends, work associates, neighbors and social media contacts. Tell them how there is an alternative tax system before Congress that eliminates the IRS.
  • Contact your local newspaper. Share your thoughts on how the IRS failed to follow federal law in securing employee emails. Discuss what would happen if you did not secure your yearly filing documentation. Then tell them why you support the FairTax.
  • Bake a cake and invite 5 or 6 friends for dessert. Share the FairTax, Flat Tax, income taxcomparison sheet or give them a FairTax pocket card.  Invite them to join you in the greatest tax revolution of our lifetime.
  • Give a FairTax pocket card to everyone you meet, everywhere you go! Leave a few in the doctor’s office. You can order 1,000 pocket cards for $40 at the FairTax store.
  • Send your most generous donation of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100 or whatever you can afford. Please make sure that your grassroots leaders know that YOU are standing with them!

It is a great time for the FairTax movement! Just this week another member of Congress came out in support of the FairTax. Representative Scott DesJarlais (TN-4) became the record 75th co-sponsor of H.R. 25, tweeting @DesJarlaisTJN04, “Proud to co-sponsor FairTax legislation”.

He added in his announcement, “The Internal Revenue Service has shown itself to be corrupt, inept and unworthy of the responsibility the agency has been entrusted with….”

Finally, your new grassroots board of directors is hard at work defining a sweeping new strategic plan. Included in this plan is a new and commanding FairTax presence in Washington, D.C., expanded membership opportunities, enhanced fundraising capabilities and aggressive communication and marketing strategies.

Stay tuned, lots of good things are happening with the FairTax campaign.

TOLD YOU SO!

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On June 25, 2014, I spent an hour on the phone with our client and Medicare to get Medicare to correct its erroneous records about our client.  The client is from Valparaiso, Indiana.  We spoke to three Medicare representatives at three offices.

The client is a victim of the Obamacare law (a.k.a. “Affordable Care Act”).  Her employer cancelled the group health insurance plan for all the employees.  This forced them to obtain insurance through other Obamacare approved insurance plans.  Our client had another option.  The client worked past age 65.  So, she could go on Medicare and obtain a Medicare supplement insurance policy with a rather low monthly premium.

She (and all her co-workers) lost her employer’s group health plan coverage on February 28, 2014.  Her Medicare and Medicare supplement coverage started March 1, 2014.

But, when the client and I phoned Medicare on June 25, it had not yet updated the records.  Medicare records still showed that our client was on an employer provided group health insurance plan.  Medicare had not changed our client’s records for about four months.  During that time, the doctors who gave her service were not being paid anything by Medicare and Medicare was not forwarding claims information to the client’s Medicare supplement insurance company.  This tardiness by Medicare was a problem even before Obamacare.

During the Obamacare law debates, I repeatedly warned in my articles that there are problems with both Medicare and the Veterans Administration (VA) health systems.  I knew that because for years I had helped senior citizens who had problems with both of those federal health care systems.  I warned that if a national health care system was modeled on Medicare or the VA, then ALL AMERICANS WOULD START HAVING THE SAME KINDS OF PROBLEMS THAT SENIOR CITIZENS HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING FOR YEARS UNDER MEDICARE AND THE VA.

Since then, Obamacare became law.  Now, we have learned that the VA was letting senior veterans DIE rather than give them medical service, that VA officials were keeping “off-record” books about the veterans who were not getting medical attention in order for some high level VA officials to claim and get bonuses that they did not deserve for good management.  Also, Medicare still does not have a system for quick changes to records so that medical claims are processed correctly for senior citizens who just start Medicare.

I told you so!  One of the reasons that the Obamacare law is bad is because it just increases and spreads problems that were already in the Medicare and VA health care systems.

If Obamacare remains the law, I expect that in the future the Obamacare law will be amended to allow the federal government to order seniors to die to save the federal government money rather than just recommend that seniors die as is the current law.

EDITORS NOTE: Note: Woodrow Wilcox is the senior medical bill case worker at a major insurance agency in northwest Indiana.  Wilcox has helped senior clients of that agency save over one million by correcting medical bill errors that were caused by mistakes in the Medicare system.  He wrote the book SOLVING MEDICARE PROBLEM$ (www.solvingmedicareproblems.com) to teach others how to help senior citizens with Medicare related medical bill problems.  To educate the public, Wilcox recently launched the website www.ObamacareHurtsSeniors.com.

© 2014 Woodrow Wilcox

Heterogeneity: A Capital Idea! by Sandy Ikeda

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When Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century was released in English earlier this year it sparked vigorous debate on the issue of wealth inequality. Despite the prominence of the word in the title, however, capital has not itself become a hot topic. Apparently none of his defenders have taken the opportunity to explore capital theory, and, with a few exceptions, neither have his critics.

To prepare to read Mr. Piketty’s book I’ve been studying Ludwig Lachmann’s Capital and Its Structure, which, along with Israel M. Kirzner’s Essay on Capital, is among the clearest expositions of Austrian capital theory around. A hundred years ago the “Austrian economists”—i.e. scholars such as Eugen von Boehm-Bawerk who worked in the tradition of Carl Menger—were renowned for their contributions to the theory of capital. Today capital theory is still an essential part of modern Austrian economics, but few others delve into its complexities. Why bother?

Capital is heterogeneous

Among the Austrians, Boehm-Bawerk viewed capital as “produced means of production” and for Ludwig von Mises “capital goods are intermediary steps on the way toward a definite goal.” (Israel Kirzner uses the metaphor of a “half-baked cake.”)  Lachmann then places capital goods in the context of a person’s plan: “production plans are the primary object of the theory of capital.” You can combine capital goods in only a limited number of ways within a particular plan. Capital goods then aren’t perfect substitutes for one another. Capital is heterogeneous.

Now, mainstream economics treats capital as a homogenous glob. For instance, both micro- and macroeconomists typically assume Output (Q) is a mathematical function of several factor inputs, e.g. Labor (L) and Capital (K) or

Q = f(L,K).

In this function, not only is output homogenous (whether we’re talking about ball-bearings produced by one firm or all the goods produced by all firms in an economy) but so are all labor inputs and all capital inputs used to produce them. In particular, any capital good can substitute perfectly for any other capital good in a firm or across all firms. A hammer can perfectly replace, say, a helicopter or even a harbor.

On the other hand, capital heterogeneity implies several things.

First, according to Mises, heterogeneity means that, “All capital goods have a more or less specific character.” A capital good can’t be used for just any purpose:  A hammer generally can’t be used as a harbor. Second, to make a capital good productive a person needs to combine it with other capital goods in ways that are complementary within her plan: Hammers and harbors could be used together to help repair a boat. And third, heterogeneity means that capital goods have no common unit of measurement, which poses a problem if you want to add up how much capital you have:  One tractor plus two computers plus three nails doesn’t give you “six units” of capital.

Isn’t “money capital” homogeneous? The monetary equivalent of one’s stock of capital, say $50,000, may be useful for accounting purposes, but that sum isn’t itself a combination of capital goods in a production process. If you want to buy $50,000 worth of capital you don’t go to the store and order “Six units of capital please!” Instead, you buy specific units of capital according to your business plan.

At first blush it might seem that labor is also heterogeneous. After all, you can’t substitute a chemical engineer for a pediatrician, can you? But in economics we differentiate between pure “labor” from the specific skills and know-how a person possesses. Take those away—what we call “human capital”—and then indeed one unit of labor could substitute for any other. The same goes for other inputs such as land. What prevents an input from substituting for another, other than distance in time and space, is precisely its capital character.

One more thing. We’re talking about the subjective not the objective properties of a capital good. That is, what makes an object a hammer and not something else is the use to which you put it. That means that physical heterogeneity is not the point, but rather heterogeneity in use. As Lachmann puts it, “Even in a building which consisted of stones completely alike these stones would have different functions.” Some stones serve as wall elements, others as foundation, etc. By the same token, physically dissimilar capital goods might be substitutes for each other. A chair might sometimes also make a good stepladder.

But, again, what practical difference does it make whether we treat capital as heterogeneous or homogenous? Here, briefly, are a few consequences.

Investment capital and income flows

When economists talk about “returns to capital” they often do so as if income “flows” automatically from an investment in capital goods. As Lachmann says:

In most of the theories currently in fashion economic progress is apparently regarded as the automatic outcome of capital investment, “autonomous” or otherwise. Perhaps we should not be surprised at this fact: mechanistic theories are bound to produce results that look automatic.

But if capital goods are heterogeneous, then whether or not you earn an income from them depends crucially on what kinds of capital goods you buy and exactly how you combine them, and in turn how that combination has to complement the combinations that others have put together. You build an office-cleaning business in the hopes that someone else has built an office to clean.

There’s nothing automatic about it; error is always a possibility. Which brings up another implication.

Entrepreneurship

Lachmann:

We are living in a world of unexpected change; hence capital combinations, and with them the capital structure, will be ever changing, will be dissolved and re-formed. In this activity we find the real function of the entrepreneur.

We don’t invest blindly. We combine capital goods using, among other things, the prices of inputs and outputs that we note from the past and the prices of those things we expect to see in the future. Again, it’s not automatic. It takes entrepreneurship, including awareness and vision. But in the real world—a world very different from the models of too many economists—unexpected change happens. And when it happens the entrepreneur has to adjust appropriately, otherwise the usefulness of her capital combinations evaporates. But that’s the strength of the market process.

A progressive economy is not an economy in which no capital is ever lost, but an economy which can afford to lose capital because the productive opportunities revealed by the loss are vigorously exploited.

In a dynamic economy, entrepreneurs are able to recombine capital goods to create value faster than it disappears.

Stimulus Spending

As the economist Roger Garrison notes, Keynes’s macroeconomics is based on labor, not capital. And when capital does enter his analysis Keynes regarded it the same way as mainstream economics: as a homogeneous glob.

Thus modern Keynesians, such as Paul Krugman, want to cure recessions by government “stimulus” spending, without much or any regard to what it is spent on, whether hammers or harbors. (Here is just one example.)  But the solution to a recession is not to indiscriminately increase overall spending. The solution is to enable people to use their local knowledge to invest in capital goods that complement existing capital combinations, within what Lachmann calls the capital structure, in a way that will satisfy actual demand. (That is why economist Robert Higgs emphasizes “real net private business investment” as an important indicator of economic activity.)  The government doesn’t know what those combinations are, only local entrepreneurs know, but its spending patterns certainly can and do prevent the right capital structures from emerging.

Finally, no one can usefully analyze the real world without abstracting from it. It’s a necessary tradeoff. For some purposes smoothing the heterogeneity out of capital may be helpful. Too often though the cost is just too high.

ABOUT SANDY IKEDA

Sandy Ikeda is an associate professor of economics at Purchase College, SUNY, and the author of The Dynamics of the Mixed Economy: Toward a Theory of Interventionism. He will be speaking at the FEE summer seminars “People Aren’t Pawns” and “Are Markets Just?“

The Presbyterian Church’s Anti-Israeli Identity

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The Presbyterian Church (USA) symbolically voted in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) against the State of Israel.  The Presbyterian Church’s ideological support of anti Israel sanctions and divestments is so strong former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke publicly supports the Presbyterian Church’s anti Israel and anti Jewish trajectory.

unnamed (9)The Presbytery of New Covenant, 221st General Assembly (2014) voted 310-303 to divest their substantial assets from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, and Hewlett Packard because of their contracts working with the State of Israel.

Even the self hating Jews were excited by this Presbyterian Church decision on Israeli divestment. JTA February 14, 2014 reports,  ‘Near its conclusion, the church’s new statement quotes the advocacy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, Sydney Levy, saying, “We are in opposition to the settlements and occupation, and in favor of a true and just peace.” The JVP staffer is the only Jewish person quoted in the church’s statement.”

The Dualistic Hypocritical Identity Of The Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian Church attacks Israel with divestment and sanctions while demanding Israel build relationships with the Islamic terrorist group Hamas.  The Presbyterians are afraid to call out Hamas for its violence against Israel because they fear the Hamas crosshairs pointing in their direction.

The 2014 Presbyterian Covenant states, “Call for all presbyteries and congregations within the Presbyterian Church(USA) to include interfaith dialogue and relationship-building as part of their own engagement in working for a just peace.”

The Presbyterian Church demonizes the State of Israel but issues no demands on the Palestinians to stop for their ongoing rocket and terrorist attacks against Israel, while calling for a “Just Peace”.  Demanding a ‘just peace’ without acknowledging the Palestinians numerous declarations calling for the destruction of Israel is simply the height of hypocrisy.

Hamas Defines A Just Peace

The Hamas Charter in its second paragraph states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).”  The Presbyterian Church must demand Hamas remove this one paragraph in their Charter as the starting point for any interfaith dialogue and relationship building in search of a Just Peace.

Sorry to tell you this, but when the Palestinians, in the name of Islam, call for the total annihilation of every man, woman, and child in the State of Israel, there can be no expectation of peace. Unless of course the definition of peace is the annihilation of Israel.

Conclusion

Hamas is honest in saying their definition of a ‘Just Peace’ is when Israel is obliterated by Islam and driven into the sea.

Hamas is telling the world exactly where they stand and the Presbyterian Church is not listening. The Presbyterian Church has aligned itself with forces who believe the only roadblock to Peace in the Middle East is Israel.

Lenar Whitney: Global Warming is a Hoax

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Conservative for Congress Lenar Whitney denounces “Global Warming” as a myth, designed to give more power to the executive branch, while increasing taxes in a progressive’s dream to regulate every aspect of American life ­ from our light bulbs to our thermostat.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/0BzItCPk5j4[/youtube]

 

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Bergdahl has not yet been asked why he left Afghan base: U.S. Army

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With all the allegations that he deserted and voluntarily sought out the Taliban, and the claims that he converted to Islam and was aiding in the Taliban’s jihad, this would seem to be an important question. But of course, Army officials don’t want to upset the poor lamb.

“Bergdahl has not yet been asked why he left Afghan base: U.S. Army,” Reuters, June 25, 2014 (thanks to Kenneth):

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl has made no admission of wrongdoing since being released by the Taliban last month, officials said on Wednesday, adding that he has yet to be asked the tough question of why he left base before his 2009 capture.

Army officials said the two-star general investigating Bergdahl’s disappearance in Afghanistan will seek to bring up that subject with the soldier sometime after his outpatient treatment in Texas is finished in about two weeks and before the expected completion of the Army’s probe in mid-August.

In the meantime, Bergdahl seems to be in a state of limbo, with much of his back pay frozen in a military account. He hasn’t been read his rights yet, although conversations that could be used against him have focused on what happened during his time in captivity, as opposed to anything prior, officials said.

Asked about reports that Bergdahl may have colluded with the Taliban, an Army official told reporters on condition of anonymity: “I have no knowledge of that particular speculation or of anything that has come out of the briefings to support that.”

Whatever Bergdahl might say about his disappearance would have vast implications for him, including potential military punishment but also practical matters such as back pay.

Officials caution on Wednesday that his duty status as a “missing/captured” soldier, which entitles him to back pay and special benefits, could be lost if any misconduct is determined.

“There is some pay that is being held right now, pending the outcome of the investigation,” a second Army official said at a briefing with Pentagon reporters, acknowledging that the funds were in “contention now because of his duty status.”…

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Keeping error and bias out of the classroom: Parents are entitled to an accurate account of the content of textbooks

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The school year is slowly winding down, but the controversy over public school educational materials is just heating up, potentially to an unprecedented level. While headlines grab our attention every few weeks with stories of biased textbooks and handouts, an opportunity is coming to examine the content of textbooks before they reach the desks of millions of students.

unnamedThis month, the Texas State Board of Education will share the titles of approximately 50 new social studies textbooks and 100 pieces of additional educational material under consideration for adoption in 2015. In six months, the board’s will finalize approvals. This will determine the purchase of textbooks for the 5 million Texas public school students and influence the textbook decisions in school districts around the country. The Texas textbook market is large enough that publishing companies will change nationally marketed books to conform to the board’s decisions, and estimates suggest that at least a majority of U.S. school districts base textbook decisions on Texas.

Recently, Texas changed its internal textbook-review system, largely in response to a brouhaha last summer when two citizens — a nutritionist and a chemical engineer — questioned one science textbook’s lessons on evolution. In an attempt to pre-empt such controversies in the future, the Texas State Board of Education requested applications from doctorate holders and educators to spend one week in Austin this summer training as reviewers and then vetting all of the proposed textbooks.

The reviewers are forbidden from speaking about the task. The public does not know the criteria for review, including the detail in which the texts will be examined, whether the texts will be examined for accuracy, and whether biased information will be identified.

unnamed (1)The one-week limitation alone raises significant questions about the intensity and seriousness of these reviews. In my experience, scholars can spend up to 60 hours reviewing a textbook, researching questionable facts and writing analysis. Many social studies textbooks run well over 500 pages long, and the more comprehensive books can exceed 1,000 pages. Moreover, no single historian is sufficiently knowledgeable to scrutinize the breadth of a world history curriculum.

Some textbooks are great. In such books, the facts are almost all accurate, The material is presented objectively, questions and exercises promote responsible critical thinking, and the content is fitting for the target student. They are also generally commendable contributions to our educational systems.

Other textbooks, however, are replete with errors and sometimes biases. For one recent review of an American government textbook, we compiled a 57-page report identifying and explaining 192 individual points of factual inaccuracies, inconsistencies and provable biases. Common Core undoubtedly contributes to the problem of inaccurate textbooks by bringing a slew of new material to the market, but this problem, in fact, has a long history in America’s schools.

The inclusion of inaccurate and biased information in textbooks dates at least to the 1800s and a prohibitionist named Mary Hanchett Hunt. As an influential part of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Hunt successfully altered American education to indoctrinate students with an irrational fear of alcohol. Her textbooks corrupted the education of almost every American child at the time with propaganda and falsehoods that went so far as to claim scientific proof that just one drop of alcohol could cause insanity and that alcohol can turn blood into water.

unnamed (2)This false education played a major role in public support for Prohibition, one of America’s worst policy failures. School boards of Hunt’s day complied with her demands that such lies be taught as “scientific facts” because it was the easiest path. It took an independent group of scientists and physicians, known as the Committee of 50, to finally refute and discredit her textbooks with real scientific evidence. Only thorough, in-depth analysis finally stopped the dishonest and politically motivated education.

This month, the public saw a middle-school assignment presenting Holocaust-denial propaganda as legitimate, and two months ago, we saw a textbook explaining the Second Amendment as “the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them.” However, it is vital that we inform ourselves with more than headlines. Parents, taxpayers and citizens must have access to detailed information about the accuracy, objectivity and content responsibility of these books. Now in Texas, and in the many school districts nationwide affected by the Texas State Board of Education’s decisions, parents and citizens do have the opportunity to find out what these textbooks are teaching before they come home in their children’s backpacks.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Washington Times.

Gun Crimes Plummet Even as Gun Sales Rise

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A majority of Americans say they think gun crime has increased over the past 20 years, even though it has actually fallen dramatically, a recent Pew Research Center survey shows.

Sources: DOJ, ATF AFMER & USITC, Pew Research Center, National Safety Council, Gallup

For more information visit: http://nssf.org/infographics

gun-crimes-plummet-even-as-gun-sales-rise_5203f959cd014

The INNOCENCE of HILLARY

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Daniel Greenfield lays out the case of “The Innocence of Hillary”. Hillary Clinton somehow manages to distance herself from any responsibility for the deaths of four Americans on her watch.  An internet filmmaker is where the blame lies, not Islamic jihadists… or HER!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/2VVowhPFv7A[/youtube]

The Obama Presidency Implodes

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The first time I heard the term “military advisors” it was being used by John F. Kennedy and they were being sent to South Vietnam. A strong anti-communist, in 1961 Kennedy approved financing an increase in the size of the South Vietnamese army from 150,000 to 170,000 along with sending a thousand U.S. military advisors to help train them. We all know how the Vietnam War ended.

Earlier, the North Korean attack on the South had ended in a stalemate. Technically a state of war still exists. Since 1953, the U.S. has maintained a military force in South Korea. In the wake of World War II, we still have a military presence in Europe and Japan to aid in their defense.

Obama’s announcement that 300 military advisors are being sent to Iraq is too little, too late.

As of this writing Americans are witnessing what happened when Obama withdrew from Iraq and are anticipating the same result when we withdraw from Afghanistan. Yes, we were and are war-weary, but we do not like what we’re seeing in Iraq and the President’s foreign policy failures are compounding by the day.

We are weary, too, after six and a half years of the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. It has taken this long for all the predictions regarding his lack of experience and competence to come true.

The polls taken during the past week provide evidence of this. Gallup’s job approval poll of June 9-15 showed that 42% of “national adults” approved. Over at Rasmussen Reports, Obama’s job approval on June 21 was 48%. Asked by Rasmussen if the nation is headed in the right direction or not, 67% of likely voters said it was not. Reacting to the immigration invasion crisis a Gallup found that 69% thought he was doing a poor job.

Depending on events, polls rise and fall, but the numbers indicate a growing loss of confidence in Obama’s decisions and actions to date. I suspect that what they do not show is a growing sense of the man as utterly untrustworthy and increasingly distant from the demands of the office.

We are witnessing the implosion of the Obama presidency.

All presidencies have a scandal or two, usually relatively minor in the grand scheme of national management. Watergate was considered minor initially and took two years to materialize into the scandal that forced Nixon to resign. Obama, however, has generated directly and indirectly enough scandals for their combined weight to begin being noticed even by those who pay little attention to Washington, D.C.

The worst of the latests has been the revelation of how the Internal Revenue Service was politicized to attack organizations that were deemed to be affiliated with the Tea Party movement and patriotic objectives. The “loss” of Lois Lerner’s emails and others smells of the destruction of evidence Congress has demanded. The one element of the government that virtually all Americans interact with is the IRS.

Other scandals like Solyndra, representing the waste of billions on wind and solar companies, many of which went bankrupt after receiving all manner of grants and loans, did not registered in a similar fashion. The wiretapping of Associated Press reporters’ phone calls likewise did not evoke widespread concern. The failure of the “stimulus” that spent billions without producing an uptick in the economy was seen as just another way the government wastes our money. Even “Fast and Furious” in which thousands of weapons were purchased and transferred to Mexican drug cartels did not evoke more than a short expression of dismay.

Benghazi, however, in which a U.S. ambassador died along with three others, remains an unresolved scandal as much for the lies about a video as its cause as for the tragedy of the abandonment of those killed. The release of five leaders of the Taliban from Guantanamo without letting Congress know has piled on the previous scandals to a point where serious concerns about both Obama’s judgment have arisen.

What remains now is a combination of the President’s increasing use of Executive Orders to create as much mischief as possible along with the perception that he simply does not care what Americans in general and Congress in particular thinks about what he is doing. There is talk in the House of bringing a legal suit against the President regarding his heavy use of Executive Orders to bypass Congress while initiating policies that require congressional inclusion and oversight.

Those of us who pay close attention to what the President is doing know that the ultimate aim of his actions in office has been to harm the nation in a variety of ways from reducing our military to pre-World War Two levels to destroying a large element of the nation’s electrical energy supply by forcing coal-fired plants out of business.

Ultimately, the implosion of the Obama presidency has been the realization that he has put the nation at risk of the world’s bad actors by causing America’s global leadership position to erode. Americans have been accustomed to being a leading military and economic power since the end of World War Two and he has been undermining that in every way possible.

Voter payback is likely to see a major shift of political power in Congress away from the Democratic Party in the forthcoming midterm elections and would enable Republicans to slow or stop further damage to the nation. Failing that, the fate of the nation will be a great risk.

© Alan Caruba, 2014

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Fort Lauderdale TEA Party Leaders attacked for supporting the Republican Party Platform

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Preserving and Protecting Traditional Marriage is a plank of Republican Party Platform. The What We Believe 2012 Republican Party Platform states, “The institution of marriage is the foundation of civil society. Its success as an institution will determine our success as a nation. It has been proven by both experience and endless social studies that traditional marriage is best for children.”

Fort Lauderdale TEA Party member Danita Kilcullen sent out an email which pointed out that Republican Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca and Republican school board candidate Heather Brinkworth (pictured above), who Governor Rick Scott recently appointed to the Broward County School Board, marched in the gay pride parade in Wilton Manors on June 21, 2014.

Kilcullen noted in her email, “You [Brinkworth] have clearly violated the policies stated quite plainly in the Platform of The Republican Party of Florida. This behavior proves to me that your words mean nothing and your loyalties are not with Traditional American Family Values as articulated by [the] RPOF, but to which ever way the political winds are blowing. Because of your betrayal and the overtly unethical standards inherent therein, I cannot support your election to The Broward School Board and shall actively work against your campaign.”

For pointing out the obvious Kilcullen and others from TEA Party Fort Lauderdale are now under attack.

sig_mayoNEW_FLSUN_02-07-2008_SB_1_00CIRDF

Sun Sentinel Columnist Michael Mayo. Photo: Jim Rassol, Sun Sentinel.

Michael Mayo, Sun Sentinel Columnist in an oped titled “Tea Party sinks to new low with attacks on gay pride attendees” seems to miss the point of Kilcullen’s email. Mayo writes, “Some of the Tea Party’s recent repugnant homophobic behavior is no joke. These self-proclaimed watchdogs of true conservatism criticized two local Republicans for appearing at the annual Stonewall Anniversary/Gay Pride parade in Wilton Manors. As my colleague Anthony Man reported, an attack flier against Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca and Broward School Board member Heather Brinkworth was distributed at a monthly Republican meeting. Local Tea Party leader Danita Kilcullen said she wasn’t responsible for the flier, but she sent out an email version with the same photos that began, ‘Whores chasing whores, if you will.'”

A question for Mr. Mayo: Why is supporting traditional families and not supporting homosexual behaviors “repugnant homophobic behavior”? Gee, isn’t name calling bullying? Is Mayo all up in arms because he is a homosexual, anti-traditional marriage or just a Saul Alinsky useful idiot? Has Mayo got his panties all twisted because someone wants to tell the truth about homosexuality and hold Republicans to the highest standards of political behavior, like following their own party’s platform?

May I humbly suggest that the flyer passed out at the Broward County Republican meeting was both fitting and proper. The flyer asked, “Is it worth selling your soul to the devil to get maybe 10 percent of a 1 percent homosexual voting block?” That is the point. Are Republicans going to stand by their own party’s platform, as they are sworn to do, or are they, like LaMarca and Brinkworth, simply pimping themselves for votes rather than standing on principles?

Mayo seems to be more worried by obesity and heart disease and  forgets that the cause of both is bad personal decisions. Homosexuality is also a bad personal decision. Mr. Mayo, why not condemn all bad behaviors that negatively impact the individual and society? Are you truthophobic or just a shill for Democrats and homosexuals. Aren’t you supposed to be “a watchdog” and expose bad behaviors, bad public policy and bad politicians?

TEA Party member Jack Gillies, got it right when he condemned same-sex marriage and cited a Bible passage from Leviticus calling homosexuality “an abomination.” But perhaps the greater abomination is when people like Mayo support it.

As Lutheran Minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed by Adolf Hitler, wrote, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” I commend Kilcullen and Gillies for speaking and acting like civil human beings.

If Mayo ever loses his job as a Sun Sentinel “columnist” I am sure that there is a recently opened position for him at the Internal Revenue Service looking into the activities of the non-profit statues of organizations like TEA Party Fort Lauderdale. Talk about sinking to a new low.

RELATED ARTICLES:

IRS Admits Wrongdoing, Settles Suit with National Marriage Group
Broward County, FL: Twenty-Two Hour Festival “Glorifying Sodomy and Debauchery”
Florida Attorney General Files Motions to Intervene in Homosexual so-called “Marriage” Lawsuits!
Boston “Gay Pride Week”: What the media won’t tell you about the homosexual movement
Ugly “Homo-Mafia” Is Coming
Will There Be a Consequence?
Rush Limbaugh Explodes on ‘Corrupt’ GOP for Employing ‘Reprehensible’ Tactic Against Tea Party (+video)
Florida Middle School students reading child pornography – WatchdogWire – Florida
Marriage Should Not Be Redefined Under the 14th Amendment

EDITORS NOTE: The featured picture of Heather Brinkworth is courtesy of the Sun Sentinel.

Trevor Loudon: The Communists Among U.S.

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Trevor Loudon spoke at the Wetumpka TEA Party recently. Listen to his remarks and learn about the Communists among U.S.

Trevor says, “I’m a libertarian activist and political researcher from Christchurch New Zealand. I believe in freedom with responsibility, not freedom from responsibility. My ideal society is one in which government is confined to protecting its citizens from criminals and external enemies. I believe in working with all those who are moving in broadly the same direction. The views expressed in this Blog are strictly my own.”

Trevor is also the founder and editor of KeyWiki.org, a rapidly growing website with the goal of unlocking the covert side of U.S. and Global politics.

PART I:

EYE-OPENING:Trevor Loudon exposes the Communists/Marxists currently serving in our US Congress Part I from Wetumpka Tea Party on Vimeo.

 PART II:

EYE-OPENING:Trevor Loudon exposes the Communists/Marxists currently serving in our US Congress Part II from Wetumpka Tea Party on Vimeo.

The Veterans Administration has never been run right

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The massively expensive Veterans Administration (VA) is a perfect example of how the government is not able to efficiently perform private sector functions. The union based operations are and should be an embarrassment for anyone associated with them.

Senator Coburn yesterday released a report showing over 1,000 veterans died over a ten year period waiting for appointments and the VA paid out nearly a billion dollars in malpractice suits. Coburn also stated doctors at the VA hospitals only handle 1/6th the number of patients a private hospital does showing the union mentality is spread throughout the corrupt organization.

images-8There should be calls to disband the terrible government waste, fraud and abuse prevalent at the hospitals but Socialist Bernie Sanders says we need to increase the number of hospitals (another example of insanity by doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result) as if throwing more taxpayer money at a failed system will fix it.

The scary part is this is the service Obama and the other “progressives” (communists if you will) want eventually to force on all of us when Obamacare fails as is inevitable.

RELATED ARTICLE: Honolulu VA Still Worst in Nation–Wait Time 130 days

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo of Senator Coburn is courtesy of the Associated Press.

CNN’S Reliable Sources Not So Reliable

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Since 1984, I’ve been covering the Middle East, terrorism, and the intersection with America’s foreign policy.

Over the course of my career, I have spent countless hours in television studios under glaring lights and in front of cameras, both as a professional news anchor for World News at Middle East Television and as the President of ACT! for America warning Americans about the threat from Jihad.

I’m not “just” a survivor. I went to work to understand the world around me. I am proud of my Lebanese roots, but as a Christian targeted for my faith, and a woman, subjugation was a virtual guarantee. I immigrated to the United States. That’s where freedom is. It’s in our founding documents; it’s in our blood.

I always welcome the opportunity to appear on television to discuss what I consider to be the most important topic facing America today: the threat to our national security posed by Jihadists around the globe.

I was pleased to accept an invitation to appear on CNN’s Reliable Sources, on Sundaymorning to discuss the issue of so-called “Islamophobia.”

Unfortunately, what transpired in the production and editing process at CNN was one of the most egregious examples of biased journalism that I have ever come across.

Some background is in order here.

First of all, the whole issue of “Islamophobia” is a bogus one. The term was created from whole cloth by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in an effort to suppress free speech and stifle justifiable criticism of Islamic regimes.

Headquartered in Saudi Arabia, the 57-member nation OIC is the largest international organization in the world outside of the United Nations. The OIC is absolutely dominated by its host nation, Saudi Arabia, which is ruled by one of the most barbaric Shariah regimes on the planet.

The term “Islamophobia” first appeared in Western media in the 1980s when it was used to lay proverbial siege to British author and Muslim apostate Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses, which was viewed by many Muslims as insulting the Prophet Muhammed. (Readers may recall that the leader of OIC member nation Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill Rushdie.)

Essentially, the OIC works to outlaw any and all criticism of Islamic leaders, customs, legal codes and regimes. The OIC considers virtually any negative portrayal (whether genuine, professed or supposed) of Islam to be “Islamophobia.”

So, the entire Reliable Sources segment was to be framed around a term that is essentially a product of Islamist propaganda. Note that despite the fact that host Brian Stelter parrots OIC propaganda on “Islamophobia” right from the opening of the show, he fraudulently portrays his program as “objective” between the Right and the Left, the Red and the Blue.

As I learned all-too well, Reliable Sources is anything BUT unbiased.

The original taping of the segment was about 30 minutes long, but just over 13 minutes made it on air. The editing was sloppy and disjointed, leaving out important parts of the dialogue.

Brian Stelter started right in by mocking Fox News’ Sean Hannity for his reference to worldwide Jihad. Later he said that the terrorist threat was “not there.” How can Stelterpossibly deny that Jihad is in fact a global threat? Just look at this list of Jihadist terrorist organizations that have launched attacks around the world in just the past month:

• ISIS
• Abu Sayyaf
• Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
• Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
• HAMAS
• Hezbollah
• Boko Haram
• Al Shabaab
• Lashkar e Taiba
• Jemaah Islamiyah
And ironically, CNN itself reported on the arrests just a week ago of two men in Texas on terrorism charges.

My appearance on Reliable Sources was opposite Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York.

Again, some background is in order here. Sarsour has a lengthy history of denying the threat from terrorism and attacking the NYPD and FBI for their counterterror efforts, just as she did on Reliable Sources on Sunday. Some of her denials can only be categorized in the “crackpot” classification.

For instance, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was arrested for trying to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 and subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2012, Sarsour claimed that the plot was not the work of Al Qaeda, but was a CIA plot.

Sarsour has cited the cases of Fahad Hashmi, Aafia Siddiqui and Siraj Matin as proof of US government abuses of Muslim civil rights by the FBI and NYPD. Hashmi pleaded guilty to providing material support for Al Qaeda. Siddiqui was found guilty of the attempted murder of a US Army captain and sentenced to 86 years in prison. Matin pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 years for plotting to explode bombs in the New York subway system.

During the part of the segment that actually made it on the air, Sarsour ridiculously equated isolated incidents of violence involving non-Muslims with Jihad. Sarsour even had the gall to cite the Boston Marathon bombings as an example of media “Islamophobia,” ignoring the fact that the perpetrators were in fact Islamic jihadists.

The reality is that the numbers don’t lie. The overwhelming majority of terrorist attacks in the world today are in fact acts of Islamic jihad. That is an inconvenient truth that Ms. Sarsour evidently wants the rest of America to live with. But don’t depend on CNN and its producers to tell the truth about that.

Deconstructing same-sex “marriage”

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The same sex marriage issue can be viewed from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint and from a secular viewpoint. If you are a Christian, then the first part of this discussion below is especially for you. If you are an Orthodox Jew or other non-Christian, or if you want to learn how to debate from the secular standpoint, the second part applies.

1. Christian response to the same-sex marriage issue:

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA has just given its blessing to “pastors” who perform same sex marriage.

Here is the part that Christians must focus on:

According to the denomination’s statement, on Thursday, June 19, “the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) approved a recommendation from its Civil Union and Marriage Issues Committee allowing for pastoral discretion to perform ‘any such marriage they believe the Holy Spirit calls then to perform,’ where legal by state law.” [my highlighting]

Jesus said that blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is the unpardonable sin.

“I promise you that any of the sinful things you say or do can be forgiven, no matter how terrible those things are. But if you speak against the Holy Spirit, you can never be forgiven. That sin will be held against you forever.” — Mark 3:28-29 (CEV)

Jesus was addressing a crowd containing some Pharisees, who had attributed his healing powers to Satan, when in fact the Holy Spirit had performed the miracles.

Now, if a Presbyterian “pastor” performs a “gay” wedding, then under the above-cited rule, he is tacitly averring that the Holy Spirit called him to perform it. Since the definition of marriage throughout the Bible refers only to a union between a man and a woman, this pastor is actually averring that the Holy Spirit called him to perform a “marriage” that is counter to Biblical principles. This can clearly be construed as blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

I have heard pastors saying “the Holy Spirit told me…” [to do this or that] when it would appear this was highly questionable. There are famous TV preachers who make predictions and claim that these are revelations from the Holy Spirit. Some are foolish enough to name a date, so confident are they of the anticipated outcome. But that date comes and the prediction fails to materialize. Any Christian who feels he was called to so something by the Holy Spirit would best not mention this to anyone except their spouse. To attribute anything to the Holy Spirit is to step into a booby trap.

2. Secular response to the same sex marriage issue:

We constantly hear the mantra “Homosexuals must be given an equal right to marry.”

This is America, and that statement is technically correct. However, no one has the right to change the definition of words at their whims. There are over 600 languages and dialects in the world, and none of these has an equivalent for our word marriage that can apply to both same sex and heterosexual unions.

The advocates of same sex marriage always pretend that same sex marriage meets the definition of marriage. This is the sticking point (the “equal rights” point is a red herring). Obviously, this is not true. The first step anyone would have to take is to prove that the term marriage can apply to same-sex couples. However, everyone with a pulse knows what marriage really means, and instead of using legal channels to change that definition, they slyly pretend the word “marriage” always, since time immemorial, has applied both to same-sex couples and to heterosexual couples.

The only reason people bend over and grab their ankles for these activists is fear. They use raw power of intimidation to force the legal system to apply a definition that does not exist. So-called same sex “marriage” has been legally accepted in several countries and states and yet, the main requisite for this change in law was never met, namely, a legal change in the definition of marriage. And changing this definition after millennia is like saying a dog is a cat. Homosexual activists can – and do – force the hands of crooked judges and lawyers and politicians all they want to go along with this pretense that marriage has always applied to both heterosexual and homosexual unions.

However, deep down inside people resent being told that, for example, a cat is a dog. Deep down they’d be saying “if it barks it’s not a damn cat!” And they’d be mad, rightfully so! And let’s stop pretending this is only about religion. For Christians and Orthodox Jews (and also for Muslims), it may be mostly about religion. But for everyone, religious or not, it is about language: words and their definitions. The only way you could legitimately change the definition of marriage so as to include same sex unions would be to prove that human physiology changed recently to something that it never was in those thousands of years when only people of opposite sexes could marry each other. But you can’t prove that because nothing like that happened. Granted, there were crazies like Roman Emperor Elagabulus, who are said to have “married” another man, but their actions of this kind were condemned by the grassroots. In Elagabulus’ case, he was eventually assassinated. The people’s will was done.

Thus, human nature did not change to usher in the “gay” marriage craze. Something else changed, and that is, a revolution that overturned all traditions and common sense through social engineering. And this brings us to the issue of sovereignty. A sovereign country has a right to defend its traditions and be what it always has been. In this point, Russia is actually superior to the West. Westerners have let down their guard, allowing the far left, posing in civil rights garb, to sell out our culture. We pretend it is an individual rights issue but it is a sovereignty issue. By inventing a right to “marry” someone of the same sex we have allowed our culture and hence our sovereignty to be destroyed. And yet sovereignty is in many ways more important than individual rights, because nowadays, rights are faddish and redefined regularly by activists antagonistic to culture, so they can no longer be defined. Yet sovereignty is something we all sense, as in my analogy with the cat-dog confusion.

We sense it inherently but are afraid to say so. This is social Marxism and we are slaves to it in the US.

Isn’t it time to throw off the chains? It’s all up to the people. We define – and redefine – words through the way we use them. Language is power. We must stop giving away our power.

EDITORS NOTE: The below poster was added to a Facebook comment about homosexual marriage. It seems to say what the author is saying. A picture is worth a thousand words.

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