The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has claimed that agents do not need warrants to read people’s emails, text messages and other private electronic communications, according to internal agency documents.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, released the information on Wednesday.
In a 2009 handbook, the IRS said the Fourth Amendment does not protect emails because Internet users “do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.” A 2010 presentation by the IRS Office of General Counsel reiterated the policy.
Under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986, government officials only need a subpoena, issued without a judge’s approval, to read emails that have been opened or that are more than 180 days old.
Privacy groups such as the ACLU argue that the Fourth Amendment provides greater privacy protections than the ECPA, and that officials should need a warrant to access all emails and other private messages.
Traditionally, the courts have ruled that people have limited privacy rights over information they share with third parties. Some law enforcement groups have argued that this means they only need a subpoena to compel email providers, Internet service companies and others to turn over their customers’ sensitive content.
But in 2010, a federal appeals court ruled that police violated a man’s constitutional rights when they read his emails without a warrant.
Despite the court decision, U.S. v. Warshak, the IRS kept its email search policy unchanged in a March 2011 update to its employee manual, according to the ACLU.
In watching this video you see almost every long debunked far left Democrat fallacy in the book, which he presents to students as fact.
Spreading his kind of racial animus is a tactic right out of the Frankfurt School of Marxism (communism). The goal, according to Frankfurt School teachings, is to spread cultural marxism via conflict theory. Pit people against each other via any difference that can be exploited; white vs black, rich vs poor, management vs labor, men vs women, urban vs suburban etc – in order to keep them fighting while the Marxists build an all powerful leviathan state in the name of “bringing people together”.
A wise man once said, “Only a fool fights in a burning house”. The left keeps people fighting while they loot the burning house.
What is seen in this video is not as unusual to see in class as one might think. When I sat in class I didn’t let teachers get away with it. I helped publish a student newspaper and made it very clear that what is said in class is game for publication. That helped professors to behave themselves, at least while I was watching.
A professor at the University of Southern California (USC) appears to have used a fall semester 2012 political science class to deliver sustained and angered attacks on Republicans, who he characterized as old, white, racist, and “losers.”
In a 15 min. video secretly captured by USC student Tyler Talgo, political science Professor Darry Sragow also appears to endorse the illegal suppression of Republican votes.
“You lose their information on the election in the mail,” he suggested when a student asked him how to keep Republicans from voting. “I mean there is lots of ways to do it [SIC].”
A teaching assistant (TA), who also appeared to work for the university, then seemed to suggest Black Panthers could be placed at polling stations to intimidate Republican voters.
Rather than rebuking the TA, Sragow appeared to confirm the suggestion.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You can do that.”
Neither a spokesperson for USC, or professor Sragow, responded to multiple requests from Campus Reform seeking comment.
While endorsing illegal techniques Sragow also accused the GOP of suppressing Democratic votes by supporting laws requiring voter I.D.
“Republicans are trying to prevent people of color and people of lower income from voting by requiring voter I.D.” he said.
The left has a long history of trotting out victims; those who will gladly use the victim card as a device to put politics over morality and truth in order to push an agenda most good people would otherwise never accept.
After observing how the far left politicized 9/11 this writer decided that he would never be intimidated into silence again by such underhanded tactics.
What politicization you ask? There are many examples, but the one that stands above the rest are the “four 9/11 widows” who claimed to speak for all 9/11 victims. These political operatives, often called the Jersey Girls, behaved as celebrities while engaging in the most histrionic demagoguery against President Bush. I remember one of them saying (paraphrasing):
It was President Bush’s fault that so many died on 9/11 because when we were under attack he was reading to school children. That’s where he was on the morning of 9/11.
These four women, opposed very vocally and often ridiculously, every action President Bush took to protect the nation and when called to back up their statements they would attack you for daring to be so insensitive to their victim-hood, as if these four political hacks were infallible.
The whole point of “the victim card” is to use the grief to make a political point while preventing anyone from responding. After the Jersey Girls wore out “their 15 minutes” with their antics Pulizer Prize winning journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz undressed the Jersey Girls in her famous piece in the Wall Street Journal.
A prominent Marxist once made the point clearly:
Freedom is a bourgeois prejudice. We repudiate all morality which proceeds from supernatural ideas or ideas which are outside the class conception. In our opinion, morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of the class war.
And this brings us to former Member of Congress Gabby Giffords who had this to say in a recent op-ed piece she wrote:
What they will do is create one fair system for all gun buyers, instead of the giant loophole we have now. Right now, we have one system where responsible gun owners take a background check — my husband, Mark, took one just last month, and it took 5 minutes and 36 seconds. I remember waiting a lot longer than that for the subway to take me to my office when I lived in New York City! And then we have a second system for those who don’t want to take a background check. Those people — criminals, or people suffering from mental illness, like the young man who shot me — can buy as many guns as they want on the Internet or at a gun show, no questions asked.
That doesn’t make sense. We know how to fix it — by establishing a universal background check system. And yet some of our elected officials are not listening. Some even say this legislation shouldn’t get a vote in the United States Congress.
Giffords clearly states that the young man who shot her, Jarrod Loughner, did not go through a back ground check. That is not true. Loughner most certainly did pass a back ground check and she well knows it, as it has been widely reported.
Giffords is lying and pointing this out is critically important for several reasons. Everyone who buys firearm from an exhibitor at a gun show goes through a back ground check. Private sales between collectors at gun shows who are not licensed dealers are rare. Instances of private collectors selling guns to genuine criminals are so rare that it is not able to be statistically measured reliably.
The first elephant in the room that Giffords is lying about and helping to paint a false picture of to help conceal is this – what she is calling a “universal back-ground check” is in reality a civilian gun registration scheme. A way to know what honest civilians has what guns, so that the database can be used to data-mine those people for political purposes, up to and including eventual confiscation. Such people tend to be the political enemies of far left Democrats. See ATF Seeks ‘Massive’ Database of Gun Owner’s Personal Info: ‘Assets, Relatives, Associates and More’.
One newspaper printed such a list in New York solely for the purpose of smearing gun owners, violating their privacy and endangering them. Quite simply, there is no reason to believe that such data will not be abused. The Patriot Act has strong provisions against the abuse of the tools it granted government, but we have all seen what has happened in its application.
The second elephant in the room that Giffords is concealing is just why Jarrod Loughner was able to pass the back ground check and buy the handgun that he used.
The case of Jarrod Loughner is especially egregious as he had multiple contacts with university police and the sheriff’s department. The police reports show that they knew Loughner was dangerously mentally ill. Arizona has the law in place to have people forcibly evaluated and all police and/or the sheriff had to do was dial a 1-800 number to get it done. The sheriff’s department did not do so because Loughner’s mother is a supervisor in the county parks department. That same sheriff, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, fellow Democrat and friend of Gabby Giffords, publicly blamed Rush Limbaughand Sarah Palin for the shooting.
If Sheriff Dupnik had simply done his job and used the tools the law gave him, Loughner would have been entered in to the national instant check system and would have failed his back ground check. He would also have had a real chance to gettreatment for his severe mental incapacity.
If Giffords is genuinely concerned about the quality of back ground checks, where is her critique of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who is as responsible for her terrible injuries as anyone? Where is her critique of the Obama Administration who is failing to enforce the back ground check system we have now? It stopped 70,000 ineligible people from getting guns, over 15,000 of which were felons trying to trick the system, and guess how many the Obama Administration prosecuted for trying to get a gun – 44.
Instead, Giffords is a willing participant in what is nothing more than a political attack on 80 million innocent gun owners, most of whom oppose what President Obama and the Democratic Party leadership is doing. Giffords can be sure that the vast majority of those 80 million gun owners, Americans, including this very writer, prayed for her speedy recovery again and again.
Today some of the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting victims were taken to Capital Hill on the taxpayers dollar to lobby members of Congress to pass this registration scheme. Parents of victims who were not fooled and do not support the gun registration scheme were not invited to speak. Are their dead children somehow less precious? Why are they denied the same opportunity to speak to Congress?
In light of the fact that the Obama Administration is pushing for civilian gun registration, this news becomes even more disturbing. So much for the “right to privacy”.
A recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) reveals that the agency is seeking a “massive” online database capable of pulling up individuals’ personal information, connections and associates.
On March 28, ATF posted the notice on FedBizOpps.gov, entitled “Investigative System.” The solicitation was updated on April 5 with a few minor changes.
The document says that the system will be utilized by staff “to provide rapid searches on various entities for example; names, telephone numbers, utility data and reverse phone look-ups, as a means to assist with investigations, and background research on people, assets and businesses.”
The system is described as a “massive online data repository system that contains a wide variety of data sources both historically and current that can be utilized in support of investigations and backgrounds.”
The overview of the solicitation states:
Staff will utilize “a number of internal databases as well as external sources to provide timely and relevant information and intelligence products to law enforcement agencies at the federal, state and local levels.”
The system “provides a means to rapidly check records across the country” and is “necessary in assisting investigators, agents and analyst to find people, their assets, relatives, associates and more.”
The ATF says they will use this system to provide information to Intelligence Analysts, Special Agents, Inspectors, Financial Investigators and Law Enforcement.
The investigative system will allow ATF to “obtain exact matches from partial source data searches such as, incomplete social security numbers, address, VIN numbers, etc.”
The system will also have the ability to “link structured and unstructured data to find connection points between two or more individuals.”
UPDATE – Missouri Democrat political appointees illegally hand over all CCW information of citizens in the state to the Social Security Administration and the ATF and lied about it until caught – LINK.
The left says that they do not want to take away guns from citizens. Fine, if you don’t want to take them than you don’t need to know what I have.
The left has always opposed putting mental health records in the current instant background check system called NICS (a system that the NRA pioneered and the left opposed).
The shooters mother was trying to get her son committed against his will and the political left stopped it from happening.
In the case of James Holmes and Jarrod Loughner, they had contacts with police and the police knew they were dangerously mentally ill and they refused to call it in. All of the laws in the world are useless when the police fail to utilize them.
[Editor’s Note: In the case of Jarrod Loughner who committed the Gabby Giffords shooting, Loughner had multiple contacts with university police and the sheriff’s department. The police reports show that they knew Loughner was dangerously mentally ill. Arizona has the law in place to have people forcibly evaluated. All they had to do was dial a 1-800 number to get it done. The sheriff’s department did not do so because Loughner’s mother is a supervisor in the county parks department. That same sheriff is the one who came out to blame Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin for the shooting.]
Speaking of background checks, How about the Obama Administration enforce the back ground check system we have now. It stopped 70,000 ineligible people from getting guns, over 15,000 of which were felons trying to trick the system, and guess how many the Obama Administration prosecuted for trying to get a gun – 44.
Obama lets 15,000 felons WALK and then says he needs to restrict you and me? Give me a break.
The simple truth is this, Joe crack head with a .25 or an untreated paranoid schizophrenic with a stolen gun is not a threat to a leviathan state, good people with the ability to defend their freedom with effective means are.
Anti-self defense zealot Congressman Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) tells a senior citizen who is concerned about self defense that he is probably going to die anyways. But the stupidity doesn’t stop there….
Congresswoman Degette has been a primary sponsor of federal gun ban legislation, legislation she quite obviously knows nothing about:
You heard that right… when asked how a ban on magazines holding more than 15 rounds would be effective in reducing gun violence, DeGette said:
“I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now they’re going to shoot them, so if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”
She has no idea that a magazine can be reloaded.
It gets better, when blasted by the media and blogs over her foolishness she corrects her gaffe with yet another gaffe. The Denver Post reports:
“The congresswoman has been working on a high-capacity assault magazine ban for years and has been deeply involved in the issue; she simply misspoke in referring to ‘magazines’ when she should have referred to ‘clips,’ which cannot be reused because they don’t have a feeding mechanism,” Johnson said.
Yes you read that right. Even after having a chance to check, she still does not understand that ammunition clips (which are different from magazines) are also re-loadable, as anyone who has ever handled a firearm knows very well. It is also apparent that no one on her staff under stands that either.
Senator Ted Cruz: The Obama administration has admitted that whet they are calling “Universal Back Ground Checks” is really a gun registration scheme.
Gun registration only has one purpose as history has proved that gun registries have no impact on gun crime. That purpose is confiscation from civilians.
The IRS estimates that the cheapest Obamacare approved health plan available in 2016 (to avoid the penalty) will cost $20,000.
In bold face below is the administration’s response to this study and what they say is just plain dishonest. Why?
The Obama Administration is trying to confuse people on cost vs price. A small percentage of Americans will have their skyrocketing health insurance premiums partially subsidized by the government, but while that may bring down the price of the premium, the actual cost of the premiums and the rising cost of the claims due to the taxes and regulations still skyrockets.
In this case price does not equal cost. For example: If your son goes to the store to buy a Hot Wheels car that costs $3.00 and your son only has $2.00, if you give him the extra dollar to pay for it, the cost of the toy car is still $3.00.
The idea of the subsidy making insurance affordable is also misleading because those who will be able to qualify to get help paying their premiums, will still not be able to afford their portion of the insurance premium because the cost of the insurance will be so high – subsidized or not.
This very writer’s employer subsidized health insurance premium went from about $30.00 a month to $267.00 and I make too much money to qualify for a subsidy. The poor simply cannot afford to pay it.
The other misleading statement from the Obama Administration is that some people can go on the state insurance exchange and get the state exchange to pay for part of their insurance premium. Setting aside the cost does not equal price fact we explained above, many states are not participating in the exchange. Why? Because after the first three years of Obamacare the states have to pay the subsidized portion of the rising premiums themselves which state after state has made very clear will bankrupt them (assuming that the poor would have the money to sign up and pay for their part of the estimated $20,000 per year premium).
Medical claims costs — the biggest driver of health insurance premiums — will jump an average 32 percent for Americans’ individual policies under President Obama’s overhaul, according to a study by the nation’s leading group of financial risk analysts.
The report could turn into a big headache for the Obama administration at a time when many parts of the country remain skeptical about the Affordable Care Act. The estimates were recently released by the Society of Actuaries to its members.
While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.
The disparities are striking. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.
The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans, the mainstay for workers and their families. That’s because the primary impact of Obama’s law is on people who don’t have coverage through their jobs.
The administration questions the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick. The study also doesn’t take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live on Oct. 1, administration officials said.
“It’s misleading to look at only some of the provisions of the law because, taken together, the law will reduce costs,” said Health and Human Services spokeswoman Erin Shields Britt.
But a prominent national expert, recently retired Medicare chief actuary Rick Foster, said the report does “a credible job” of estimating potential enrollment and costs under the law, “without trying to tilt the answers in any particular direction.”
Here we go again, school administrators willingly breaking the law to engage in Frankfurt School cultural marxism. This is not unusual, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) see just such law breaking every day as they fight to get radicalized school administrators and faculty to simply obey the law.
The school administrators don’t care if they break the law because when they lose in court it is the taxpayer who pays, not them. This is why FIRE is working to change that so that those in our schools who break the law under “color of law” pay the price personally.
Just as overt communist propaganda managed to get entrenched into the the curriculum of 875 Texas school districts before the state legislature and the elected Texas board of education became aware of it, we have this going on in ultra-conservative Salt Lake City.
At Missouri State the university ordered a Christian student to engage in a homosexual sex act and engage in far left political advocacy…or else:
A federal civil rights complaint has been filed against the Salt Lake City School Board after a principal booted a Cub Scout pack from an elementary school.
About 30 eight to 11 year-olds were told they could no longer meet at Mountain View Elementary School because the Boy Scout’s ban on gay members in leaders conflicted with the school district’s anti-bias policy.
The ban drew the ire of Michael Clara, a school board member and lifetime Boy Scout. Clara filed the federal complaint on behalf of two Latino parents.
“I believe it is an assault on the founding principles of our country for school officials to attempt to exclude a voice no less legitimate than its own from public school participation,” Clara told Fox News. “A marketplace of ideas devoid of competitive viewpoints engenders an insidious society of conformity, contrary to the fundamental precepts of our Constitution.”
He claims the school district is violating the Boy Scout Act – a law that requires schools to allow access to the Boy Scouts if they allow access to outside groups.
“It’s unfortunate this principal has the backing of the district to implement their own form of discrimination and racism,” Clara told Fox News. “They are using the resources of the school system to punish students who don’t agree with us.
The scout troop is made up of mostly Latino boys, he said – and the parents who complained are Catholics.
A district spokesperson told local media they had not seen a copy of the complaint.
On March 16 two Latino parents contacted Clara after the principal informed them the Cub Scout pack would no longer be allowed to meet at the school.
Three days later the school board member received a telephone call from the principal confirming that directive.
“(He) confirmed that the Cub Scouts were prohibited from meeting in the building because they will not allow gay scout leaders,” he said.
Clara, who describes himself as a Christian conservative Republican who supports gay rights, said he was very concerned by the ban.
“Why on Earth would we want to remove something positive from the school,” he asked. “Where does this end? It’s a form of discrimination in the name of intolerance.”
Use junk science, arbitrary regulations, and abuse of enforcement and licensing to restrict energy at home to raise energy prices so Obama’s “green donors”, who are profiting not from the market, but from massive tax payer support, can make more money and look more “competitive”.
On Good Friday, a day fewer people would be paying attention to the headlines than on most other days, the Obama administration released news about its plans to raise the price of gasoline. Gasoline prices for the first quarter of 2013 are higher than the same time in 2012. Intentionally pushing prices up would seem stupid in the midst of a struggling economy—that is, if your goal is to help those most impacted by higher fuel and food prices, rather than boosting the bottom line for your billionaire donors.
The plans, announced Friday, call for stricter limits for sulfur in gasoline—from the current 30 parts per million to 10. (Sulfur is an important element that is found naturally in crude oil has many industrial uses.) The EPA estimates that the low-sulfur gasoline will raise the price of a gallon of gas by “less than a penny,” while industry sources say it will be closer to ten cents a gallon.
Energy analyst Robert Rapier, told me that the new regulations “will certainly make gasoline more expensive.” He said; “Note that diesel was historically less expensive than gasoline until the ultra-low sulfur diesel standard was passed. Since then, diesel has often been more expensive than gasoline. I am not saying whether or not those standards were needed, maybe they were. But the impact on cost is undeniable. I worked in a refinery when those standards were passed, and we spent a lot of capital making sure we could comply.”
Though air pollution is a worthy consideration, it is low on the public’s list of priorities, while gas prices are of utmost importance. If the public doesn’t see air pollution as a problem, and the President’s popularity has peaked, why would he put out policy that would hit the middle class the hardest? Because, despite his campaign rhetoric, he’s not “a warrior for the middle class.
One year ago, Christine Lakatos launched her blog— “The Green Corruption Files”—through which she set out to prove that “green corruption is the largest, most expensive and deceptive case of crony capitalism in American history. Stay tuned as we expose one piece of this scandal at a time.” Last summer, Lakatos and I partnered to draw more attention to Obama’s Green-Energy Crony-Corruption Scandal. To date, I’ve written fifteen columns based on her research—this is the sixteenth.
A week ago, she posted her expose on George Soros and his profiting from his, apparent, insider information on green-energy investments. Within her post, Lakatos says: “be prepared for regulations and legislation that will, in some form or another, resemble cap-and-trade and demand additional funds to bank roll Obama’s efforts to save our planet.” Exactly one week later, the new EPA standards on gasoline were released. The standards will raise the cost of fuel—which has been the underlying goal of the Obama energy agenda: make what works more expensive so people will accept the high cost of “green energy” in the name of saving the planet. (Remember outgoing Energy Secretary Chu’s 2008 statement: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.”)
But, as the Soros story shows, it’s not about the planet, it’s about the profit. Soros’ investment portfolio shows he invests where he can make money—both traditional and green energy (though, as you’ll see, through Obama’s green energy emphasis, he has more control over green energy investments). In a 1998, 60 Minutes interview, Soros said: “I am basically there to make money. I cannot and do not look at the social consequences of what I do.”
Four Democrats from South Bend, St. Joseph County Democratic Party Chair Butch Morgan, St. Joseph County Board of Voter Registration’s member Pam Brunette, Board of Voter Registration worker Beverly Shelton and Democratic volunteer and former board worker Dustin Blythe face charges.
Vote fraud for Democrats being done right at the board of voter registration. Is anyone surprised?
Of the four, board member Beverly Shelton has plead guilty to vote fraud charges.
One of four people accused of conspiring to forge signatures on petitions to place Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the state’s 2008 presidential primary ballot in northern Indiana has pleaded guilty.
WSBT-TV reports former voter registration worker Beverly Shelton pleaded guilty Thursday to forgery and falsely making a petition as part of a plea agreement. She had been charged along with former St. Joseph County’s Democratic Party chairman Butch Morgan and two other voter registration workers.
Morgan and the two others have pleaded not guilty and will stand trial. Morgan resigned in October 2011 following 16 years as the county’s Democratic chairman after the South Bend Tribune and the Howey Politics Indiana newsletter reported finding hundreds of questionable signatures.
And the legislature did not become aware of it until 875 school districts had already adopted the program.
The curriculum, called CSCOPE, includes a list that shows capitalism on the bottom of the list of “just economic systems” along with nazism; with socialism and communism at the top of the most just. Of course those who have taken most any serious political history classes well knows that nazism and communism, in application, are virtually identical.
[Note While the propaganda used to sell communism and nazism/facism is very different, in application, as Professor of Russian and European history Dr. Dmitry Shlapentokh put it, “One is a great white shark and the other is a killer whale, sure one is a fish and the other is a mammal, but as far as their prey are concerned they are one in the same”.]
The curriculum also includes lessons having students design a new communist/socialist flag, pledging allegiance to Mexico, capitalism is “selfish”, the Founders were terrorists, etc. Sen. Larry Taylor (Friendswood) said he found the lesson plan “very egregious as a Texan and an American.”
We, here at Political Arena, have been following this story. When parents first became alarmed went to school boards for answers they were denied access or review of the curriculum. In some school districts students were even told to not tell parents what they were reviewing in class.
In fact, Texas State Board of Education member David Bradley issued the following statement:
…the ten-page CSCOPE contract that teachers are required to sign prior to using the curriculum. It prohibits educators from showing CSCOPE content to parents. This directly conflicts with the state law assuring parents the right to review any and all curriculum used in public schools to instruct their children.
In this same vein, it took the Chairman of our Education Board six months to obtain an access password from CSCOPE developers known as the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC). The TESCCC board is comprised of the 20 executive directors of the 20 publicly funded Regional Education Service Centers in Texas. Access to their meetings and minutes was repeatedly denied until the Texas Attorney General insisted that their meetings be posted and open to the public in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act.
This behavior indicates that the school administrators know very well what they are pushing on the kids and their efforts to keep it secret have been significant.
Imagine the ideological wolf pack mentality among teachers and school administrators to get this implemented in 875 Texas school districts before parents and the state legislature started to become aware, there was not one teacher or administrator who blew the whistle, not one.
Lies about sequestration, scores of lies about Benghazi, the release of illegal criminal aliens, Obama sending guns to Mexican drug cartels, the debt, and transparency.
The video doesn’t lie, but the Obama Administration has been constantly. If you know anyone who is still smitten by this man, show them these.
Here is the video referenced by Judge Pirro about how Obama lied about the release of thousands of criminal illegal aliens who were multiple offenders and other lies.
And this is a fact, as of March 13, 2013 these are just the Obamacare regulations, over 20,000 pages (photo below). The tax code is over 60,000 pages.
Apple founder Steve Jobs, according to his book, told Obama that government has rendered it almost impossible for him to build a factory here in the United States, which is why he builds them in China. This very writer has a dear friend who runs a small business with less than ten employees. He tells me of the constant efforts by state and federal bureaucrats to put him out of business.
Over 20,000 pages of Obamacare regulations as of March 2013. Courtesy Senator Mitch McConnell
The simple truth is that there are no cuts, there is just a slight reduction in the scheduled spending increases. The scare rhetoric is simply designed to condition the American people against balanced budgets.
The ideology is Marxism disguised as racism and/or “multi-culturalism”.
The nonsense exposed in this video is crammed down student and teacher’s throats at almost very public school and university, and if you think it isn’t being done at your local public school, you are wrong.
What is seen in this video is exactly the cultural Marxism taught by the Frankfurt School of Marxism (communism)….and, in the case of Wisconsin, they used money that was earmarked for special needs children to pay for it.
Another example of how idiots, Marxists and radicalized zealots have entrenched themselves into public education and are out to “teach” your kids. A week doesn’t go by where we don’t see this kind of idiocy from public school administrators.
Boys and girls at an Alabama elementary school will still get to hunt for eggs – but they can’t call them ‘Easter Eggs’ have the principal banished the word for the sake of religious diversity.
“We had in the past a parent to question us about some of the things we do here at school,” said Heritage Elementary School principal Lydia Davenport. “So we’re just trying to make sure we respect and honor everybody’s differences.”
Television station WHNTreported that teachers were informed that no activities related to or centered around any religious holiday would be allowed – in the interest of religious diversity.
“Kids love the bunny and we just make sure we don’t say ‘the Easter Bunny’ so that we don’t infringe on the rights of others because people relate the Easter bunny to religion,” she told the television station. “ A bunny is a bunny and a rabbit is a rabbit.”
Teachers had planned to have an Easter egg-themed quiz bowl where boys and girls would ring in with egg buzzers and search for answers hidden in Easter eggs.
“I don’t get upset about too many things, but this upsets me,” one parent wrote to the television station. “Even non-believers enjoy a good egg hunt. Kids need to enjoy being kids.”
Davenport reconsidered the ban after meeting with district leaders – but she still won’t allow teachers to use the word ‘Easter.’
“We compromised by allowing teachers to use other different kinds of shapes besides eggs in the classroom,” she told the television station.
But the good news, according to Madison City School Board member Phil Schmidt is that students are going to be allowed to have eggs.
Senator McCain said that members of his own party that are concerned about “Drone Strike” policy are “wacko birds” while insisting that no innocent Americans are going to be killed with drones.
The problem is that innocent Americans have already been killed, namely the 16 year old AMERICAN son of a terror suspect. The Obama Administration flippantly said “the kid chose the wrong father” when critiqued. President Obama asserted that he has the power to lock up Americans indefinitely or even kill us, his administration has even made cracks about the “kill list“.
Senator Rand Paul “I will speak until I can speak no more”
When questioned about some of these extra constitutional powers they said, “trust us” because they would give people on such target lists “administrative due process” which is something that the Obama Administration made up out of this air and essentially means that even when it comes to Americans not engaged in combat, but are merely viewed as a terror threat, the Administration can act as judge, jury and executioner.
Keep in mind that all of what we just told you are facts that are not in dispute.
This made some civil libertarians in both parties nervous for good cause. So members of the House and Senate started asking questions about how the Administration sees the limits of this power and in every case the Obama Administration would use lawyerly rhetorical slight of hand to avoid answering simple questions about the limits of such a policy.
Over and over Senators such as Rand Paul would ask simple questions, so would Senator Ted Cruz, only to get the run around. After weeks of rhetorical gymnastics and Senator Rand Paul’s epic filibuster the Obama Administration, suffering public humiliation on the issue, finally answered a straight question with a straight answer.
Why can we not just “trust them”?
Keep in mind that the Obama Administration willingly and knowingly sent guns to Mexican Drug Cartels in an effort to blame the subsequent loss of life (hundreds killed including an American border agent) with those guns on American gun owners and use the subsequent bloodshed as an excuse to attack the 2nd Amendment. The administration was outed by their own federal agents.
This is the same President and his administration that have been caught in lie after lie after lie in their cover up of the four Americans murdered in Benghazi. President Obama still refuses to let Congress have any access to the survivors of the attack.
While Rand Paul was having his epic filibuster on the Senate floor with the help of Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Ut.), John Barrasso (Wyo.), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), John Cornyn (Tex.), Jerry Moran (Kan.), John Thune (S.D.), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.). Sens.Ted Cruz (Tex.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Tim Scott (S.C.) made their first speaking appearances on the Senate floor. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also voiced their support.
Senator Mark Kirk, made his first appearance on the Senate floor after having a stroke, he did not speak but he brought Rand Paul an apple and a thermos full of of tea (the same refreshment that Jimmy Stewart used in his famous film about a Senate filibuster).
From the House Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) Justin Amash (Mich.), Ron DeSantis (Fla.), Doug LaMalfa (Calif.), Garland “Andy” Barr (Ky.), Trey Radel (Fla.), Michael Burgess (Tex.), Jim Bridenstine (Okla.), Raul R. Labrador (Idaho), Keith Rothfus (Pa.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Steve Daines (Mont.), Bill Huizenga (Mich.), Richard Hudson (N.C.) and David Schweikert (Ariz.) all came over to the Senate floor to show their support.
While Senator Rand Paul was engaging in his epic filibuster to fight for your rights under the Constitution, John McCain was having dinner with President Obama. The problem is not that Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Justin Amash are “wacko birds”, the problem is that John McCain doesn’t get Barack Obama.
Senator Rand Paul: “For 13 hours yesterday we asked him that question. Under duress and under public humiliation the White House will respond and do the right thing.”
Why have members of the House and Senate, in the case of the video below Senator Ted Cruz, has to go through rhetorical gymnastics to get Obama’s Attorney General to answer a simple question.
The question Senator Cruz is asking is a crucial legal distinction, if there is no imminent danger such as Pearl Harbor or 9/11, the Constitution demands that such a person be arrested, not summarily executed.
This is important to get nailed down because previously President Obama asserted that he has the right to be judge, jury and executioner but said “don’t worry we won’t use it that way”. Also, the Obama Administration, has a habit of using lawyerly rhetorical slight of hand to answer a question not being asked so that they have plausible deniability.
CIA Nominee Brennen, and Attorney General Holder gave slippery non-responsive answers to Senator Rand Paul’s questions when he wrote to them trying to get a straight answer, hence the epic Rand Paul filibuster.
It is also important to keep in mind that Attorney General Holder has been caught lying to Congress more than once and is facing a civil lawsuit from the House for lying.
Senator Rand Paul explains why this issue is so important:
NRA and NICS The National Rifle Association supported the establishment of the National Criminal Instant Background Check System (NICS), and we support it to this day. At its creation, we advocated that NICS checks be accurate; fair; and truly instant. The reason for this is that 99% of those who go through NICS checks are law-abiding citizens, who are simply trying to exercise their fundamental, individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
Dealers
Since 1986, those engaged in the business of selling firearms for livelihood and profit have been required to have a Federal Firearms License (FFL). All retail sales of firearms currently require a NICS check, no matter where they occur.
Private Sales
Regarding the issue of private firearms sales, it is important to note that since 1968, it has been a federal felony for any private person to sell, trade, give, lend, rent or transfer a gun to a person he either knows or reasonably should know is not legally allowed to purchase or possess a firearm.
Mental Health Records and NICS
According to a recent General Accounting Office study, as of 2011 23 states and the District of Columbia submitted less than 100 mental health records to NICS; 17 states submitted less than ten mental health records to NICS; and four states submitted no mental health records to NICS.
Gun Shows
A common misrepresentation is that criminals obtain firearms through sales at gun shows.
A 1997 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of state prison inmates who had used or possessed firearms in the course of their crimes found that 79 percent acquired their firearms from “street/illegal sources” or “friends or family.” Only 1.7 percent obtained firearms from anyone (dealer or non-dealer) at a gun show or flea market.
Prosecutions
In 2010, the FBI denied 72,659 NICS checks out of a total of 14,409,616. But only 62 of these cases were actually prosecuted, and only 13 resulted in a conviction.
“Universal Background Checks”
While the term “universal background checks” may sound reasonable on its face, the details of what such a system would entail reveal something quite different. A mandate for truly “universal” background checks would require every transfer, sale, purchase, trade, gift, rental, or loan of a firearm between all private individuals to be pre-approved by the federal government. In other words, it would criminalize all private firearms transfers, even between family members or friends who have known each other all of their lives.
According to a January 2013 report from the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice, the effectiveness of “universal background checks” depends on requiring gun registration. In other words, the only way that the government could fully enforce such a requirement would be to mandate the registration of all firearms in private possession – a requirement that has been prohibited by federal law since 1986.
Senator Lindsey Graham is a strange fellow. At times he is capable of inspiring moments of clarity where he really does “get it” and at other times he is not on Planet Earth. This is one of the better moments. This is also an example of why Eric Holder is the most radical and incompetent Attorney General in the nation’s history.
Dr. Sowell is our greatest living philosopher and he is black, which means of course, that if you disagree with him it automatically makes you a racist.
Many years ago, as a young man, I read a very interesting book about the rise of the Communists to power in China. In the last chapter, the author tried to explain why and how this had happened.
Among the factors he cited were the country’s educators. That struck me as odd, and not very plausible, at the time. But the passing years have made that seem less and less odd, and more and more plausible. Today, I see our own educators playing a similar role in creating a mindset that undermines American society.
Thomas Sowell
Schools were once thought of as places where a society’s knowledge and experience were passed on to the younger generation. But, about a hundred years ago, Professor John Dewey of Columbia University came up with a very different conception of education — one that has spread through American schools of education, and even influenced education in countries overseas.
John Dewey saw the role of the teacher, not as a transmitter of a society’s culture to the young, but as an agent of change — someone strategically placed, with an opportunity to condition students to want a different kind of society.
A century later, we are seeing schools across America indoctrinating students to believe in all sorts of politically correct notions. The history that is taught in too many of our schools is a history that emphasizes everything that has gone bad, or can be made to look bad, in America — and that gives little, if any, attention to the great achievements of this country.
If you think that is an exaggeration, get a copy of “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn and read it. As someone who used to read translations of official Communist newspapers in the days of the Soviet Union, I know that those papers’ attempts to degrade the United States did not sink quite as low as Howard Zinn’s book.
That book has sold millions of copies, poisoning the minds of millions of students in schools and colleges against their own country. But this book is one of many things that enable teachers to think of themselves as “agents of change,” without having the slightest accountability for whether that change turns out to be for the better or for the worse — or, indeed, utterly catastrophic.
This misuse of schools to undermine one’s own society is not something confined to the United States or even to our own time. It is common in Western countries for educators, the media and the intelligentsia in general, to single out Western civilization for special condemnation for sins that have been common to the human race, in all parts of the world, for thousands of years.
Meanwhile, all sorts of fictitious virtues are attributed to non-Western societies, and their worst crimes are often passed over in silence, or at least shrugged off by saying some such thing as “Who are we to judge?”
Not everyone will have to abide by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s gun control bill. If the proposed legislation becomes law, government officials and others will be exempt.
“Mrs. Feinstein’s measure would exempt more than 2,200 types of hunting and sporting rifles; guns manually operated by bolt, pump, lever or slide action; and weapons used by government officials, law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel,” the Washington Times reports.
The Huffington Post confirms these exemptions, and adds that guns owned prior to the legislation becoming law will be permissible, too. “[T]he bill includes a number of exemptions: It exempts more than 2,200 hunting and sporting weapons; any gun manually operated by a bolt, pump, lever or slide action; any weapons used by government officials and law enforcement; and any weapons legally owned as of the date of the bill’s enactment.”
The bill’s measures include stopping “the sale, manufacture and importation of 158 specifically named military-style firearms and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. It would also ban an additional group of assault weapons that accept detachable ammunition magazines and have at least one military characteristic,” according to the Huffington Post.
The left-leaning website adds: “Other new provisions include requiring background checks on all future transfers of assault weapons covered under the bill and eliminating the 10-year sunset that allowed the original ban to expire.”
Homeland Security buys 7,000 “Assault Rifles” and calls them “Personal Defense Weapons”…
But they told us that such firearms have no self defense purpose…
The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to acquire 7,000 5.56x45mm NATO “personal defense weapons” (PDW) — also known as “assault weapons” when owned by civilians. The solicitation, originally posted on June 7, 2012, comes to light as the Obama administration is calling for a ban on semi-automatic rifles and high capacity magazines.
Citing a General Service Administration (GSA) request for proposal (RFP), Steve McGough of RadioViceOnline.com reports that DHS is asking for the 7,000 “select-fire” firearms because they are “suitable for personal defense use in close quarters.” The term select-fire means the weapon can be both semi-automatic and automatic. Civilians are prohibited from obtaining these kinds of weapons.
The RFP describes the firearm as “Personal Defense Weapon (PDW) – 5.56x45mm NATO, select-fire firearm suitable for personal defense use in close quarters and/or when maximum concealment is required.” Additionally, DHS is asking for 30 round magazines that “have a capacity to hold thirty (30) 5.56x45mm NATO rounds.”
Republican New York state Sen. Greg Ball also issued a press release this week bringing attention to the weapons purchase request.
Calls made to DHS seeking information regarding whether or not the RFP was accepted and fulfilled were not immediately returned on Saturday.
Even though I have made it my specialty to study liars and the propaganda that is used to market evil to those who are not vigilant, it amazes me when I watch President Obama because, unlike most politicians who lie to get themselves out of trouble or do it off the cuff in the heat of the moment, this new crew of Saul Alinsky inspired Democrats use lies and the most advanced propaganda and deception techniques as a tool for calculated aggression. This writer has no doubt that Obama’s staff has “think tank” sessions where they come up with such lies, distortions, and dishonest associations and even take the time to focus group the lies so as to tweak them for believability.
What I found most offensive was when he perverted the message of America’s Founders as an affirmation of Marxist collectivist propaganda:
… fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people [government must do it]
Individualism of course does not mean always acting alone. Did George Washington with the revolution by himself? Can people not cooperate to make things as complex as a pencil do so without government controlling it all? By using false definitions and associative propaganda techniques this line is designed to undermine and twist the idea of rugged individualism and the idea that in our form of government is the citizen that is the sovereign, not the state.
What we saw in Obama’s speech are the kinds of self serving twists, distortions, and straw-man arguments that tyrants have used for centuries. What makes this different is that , it is being used by an American president, and the quality of such lies is the best I have ever seen since Goebbels.
I was in the process of going through the entire speech so I could deconstruct the lies, but Mytheos Holt at The Blaze has done a nice job of doing this that.
Unfortunately, another characteristic was also in evidence in Obama’s speech: namely, his tendency to argue against positions that nobody holds (and by extension, to mischaracterize his opponents’ views so as to make them easier to argue against). In logic, this unfortunate tendency is referred to as a “straw man fallacy” and it was well-worn in President Obama’s speech today – so well-worn that at times, he seemed to cough up a new straw man fallacy with every sentence. How many of these arguments in bad faith did the President use? Read on as we list each one and explain their fallacious nature.
Straw Man #1:
“For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.”
The President’s line about muskets and militias is a rhetorical flourish more than an argument, but the first part of this line is an obvious straw man. No one in the current political climate is arguing for a complete dissolution of government power such that only the American people as a collective would be responsible for defending the country or performing any other task. Rather, the question is how much responsibility should be left to private citizens. Saying “private citizens cannot handle all responsibilities” is not the same as saying “private citizens cannot handle any responsibility at all.”
Straw Man #2:
“No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.”
Like the first straw man, this one argues against something which is obviously false, and which no one believes. A single, individual person obviously cannot do all of this alone, but again, that does not imply that if someone cannot do something alone, the government must step in and do it for them. For instance, an architect cannot build a skyscraper alone. He needs laborers, engineers, and other people. But saying he can’t do this alone is not the same thing as saying that private citizens cannot cooperatively agree to do this without help from the government.
Straw Man #3:
“We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future. For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.”
No one is proposing completely giving up caring for older generations, nor is anyone proposing completely ignoring young people’s needs. The question is how much government can afford to spend on each. More to the point, no one on either side is proposing complete abolition of programs that help the elderly or the disabled.
Straw Man #4:
“We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.”
This particular straw man presumably is meant to apply to income inequality. At least, that’s the only public policy issue that this author can see it relating to. However, as with the others, it is a misreading of people who argue against greater income equality. For one thing, freedom and happiness are not necessarily the same as money, and luck is not the only thing that makes a person wealthy. Moreover, people who argue that income inequality is not necessarily a problem are not defending the idea that only a few can be wealthy, which is a question of income mobility, not equality.
Straw Man #5:
“Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.”
This straw man, which deals with global warming, is actually two fallacies in one. It is a straw man because no one believes they can avoid the impact of natural disasters completely, and it also begs the question by assuming that solving global warming will solve the problem of fires, drought and storms, while simultaneously trying to prove that by solving global warming, natural disasters will be lessened.
Straw Man #6:
“We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.”
The President’s critics on national security do not believe in perpetual war. They may believe in seeing some wars through to their conclusion, or starting other wars out of necessity, but none of them believes in perpetual war for its own sake.
Straw Man #7:
“For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.”
People arguing against bills such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which claim to be devoted to ensuring equal pay for women, often do so because they are concerned that these laws give trial lawyers too much of an excuse to sue, not because they believe women should be underpaid.
Straw Man #8:
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”
Again, there are no mainstream political figures who believe that gays should be unequal before the law. In fact, gays enjoy all the same constitutional protections as straight people. The question of whether the right to marriage is one of those constitutional protections, however, is an unresolved question, though the Supreme Court may resolve it later this year. This straw man also assumes that the only function of marriage is to facilitate love. That is certainly one view, but it is not one that all critics of gay marriage subscribe to, and thus assuming that they oppose gay marriage out of opposition to love is a straw man.
Straw Man #9:
“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity.”
Shutting off immigration completely is not a policy proposal being offered. What is being argued about is the question of what to do with people who immigrated to the US in contradiction to its laws.
Straw Man #10:
“Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.”
This is obviously true, but is also a straw man because no one believes that following a blueprint for governance requires the people following that blueprint to make all the same lifestyle choices. This is not even an argument that constitutional originalists on the Supreme Court advance. The President is arguing against a position that is not held by his critics.
And junk science it is. This “study” (see below) is filled with very bogus cliché in the book. This “study” , like all too many writings from radicalized academics, is filled with opinion presented as fact, including but not limited too: small government activists are racists, leftists are “future oriented” modern and “progressive” while conservatives are backwards and “in the past”.
The left is future oriented? As if centralized government control of society and the economy is somehow a new concept? On the contrary that idea is as old as the idea of government itself. The vast majority of man throughout history has lived under such rule.
The idea that rights come from God and cannot be usurped by government, government should be limited by rules and separation of powers, and where the minority is protected from the whims of the majority by law are new concepts and the United States was the first country in the history of the world to be founded upon those ideas; so if anything it is American conservatism that is modern, and those who favor a leviathan state, whatever the spin used to sell it, the dinosaur form of government.
The “study” also says that the left values separation of powers. Anyone skilled in politics is already laughing at this one. It is the Democratic Leader in the Senate who is asking President Obama to violate separation of powers by legislating via executive order and unilaterally raise the debt ceiling illegally. It is the left that ignores the limits placed in Article I, Section 8, as well as the 9th and 10th Amendments as well as the 5th Amendment clause about not taking property without just compensation and that is just for starters.
This is far from the first time an “academic study” ended up being nothing more than a vehicle for politically motivated slander. The IU School of Journalism published this study comparing Bill O’Reilly to the Nazi’s using laughable “fast and loose” terms and tactics. These attacks from radicalized academia are used to justify the kind of hate that we saw when far left groups attacked a charity that helps rape victims for the terrible crime of letting Bill O’Reilly raise money for them.
The report issued this week by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is titled “Challengers from the Sidelines: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right.”
The center — part of the institution where men and women are molded into Army officers — posted the report Tuesday. It lumps limited government activists with three movements it identifies as “a racist/white supremacy movement, an anti-federalist movement and a fundamentalist movement.”
The West Point center typically focuses reports on al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists attempting to gain power in Asia, the Middle East and Africa through violence.
But its latest study turns inward and paints a broad brush of people it considers “far right.”
It says anti-federalists “espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals’ civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government. Extremists in the anti-federalist movement direct most their violence against the federal government and its proxies in law enforcement.”
The report also draws a link between the mainstream conservative movement and the violent “far right,” and describes liberals as “future oriented” and conservatives as living in the past.
“While liberal worldviews are future- or progressive -oriented, conservative perspectives are more past-oriented, and in general, are interested in preserving the status quo.” the report says. “The far right represents a more extreme version of conservatism, as its political vision is usually justified by the aspiration to restore or preserve values and practices that are part of the idealized historical heritage of the nation or ethnic community.”
The report adds: “While far-right groups’ ideology is designed to exclude minorities and foreigners, the liberal-democratic system is designed to emphasize civil rights, minority rights and the balance of power.”
The report says there were 350 “attacks initiated by far-right groups/individuals” in 2011.
Details about what makes an attack a “far right” action are not clear in the report, which was written by Arie Perliger, who directs the center’s terrorism studies and teaches social sciences at West Point.
A Republican congressional staffer who served in the military told The Washington Times: “If [the Defense Department] is looking for places to cut spending, this junk study is ground zero.
“Shouldn’t the Combating Terrorism Center be combating radical Islam around the globe instead of perpetuating the left’s myth that right-wingers are terrorists?” the staffer said. “The $64,000 dollar question is when will the Combating Terrorism Center publish their study on real left-wing terrorists like the Animal Liberation Front, Earth Liberation Front, and the Weather Underground?”
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 