Patriot Post-Brief Its Consitution Day

Constitution Day 2012

Today, Sept. 17, 2012, marks the 225th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution at the Philadelphia (Constitution) Convention in 1787. The best way to honor the day might be to read it.

It's up to "We the People" to hold our elected representatives accountable for failing to honor their oaths.

Mark Alexander has an extensive archive of columns on the Constitution as it relates to various subjects over the years. Don't miss it!

Essential Liberty

"Monday, Sept. 17, marks the 225th anniversary of the signing of the nation's second great founding document, the Constitution that provides Americans with limited government. ... The Constitution was drafted more than 11 years after the Declaration. The United States had won independence but was struggling under the weak Articles of Confederation. The Founding Fathers wanted to draft a document that would provide an effective but carefully limited federal government. Through a series of compromises, they did just that. They designed three branches of government -- legislative, executive and judicial -- that would check each other. If one tried to usurp too much power, the others would have an interest in bringing it back into line. Just as competition brings down prices in economics, competition would tend to keep any particular branch of government from acquiring too much power. ... The Constitution has held up well for more than two centuries, with only occasional modifications (the 27 amendments) through the years. Of course, people used to be a bit more serious about the idea that the Constitution said what it meant and meant what it said. Any 21st-century celebration of the Constitution should take note that the country is no longer keeping faith with its constitutional principles. Today, most 'laws' actually are rules and regulations enacted by bureaucrats in government agencies, not statutes passed by elected lawmakers. Even when Congress does pass legislation, such as the Dodd-Frank financial reform law or Obamacare, lawmakers leave many blanks and expect rule-makers to fill them in. That means the bureaucracy, peopled with federal 'experts,' essentially exists as an unelected fourth branch of government. ... Our constitutional framework of limited government requires a president who will actively use his granted powers but also recognize the strict limits on those powers. After the Constitution was complete, Benjamin Franklin noted that it made the country 'a republic, if you can keep it.' This Constitution Day, let's honor the framers and respect their work by changing America's course -- and returning to our constitutional roots." --Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner
Read Heritage's 10 Steps to Save the Constitution.

Opinion in Brief

"An incendiary video about the prophet Muhammad, 'Innocence of Muslims,' was blamed for the mob attacks on our embassies in Libya and Egypt (and later, Yemen). ... One of the things we've learned all too well is that the 'Muslim street' ... have a near-limitless capacity to take offense at slights to their religion, honor, history or feelings. ... Are we really going to hold what we can say or do in our own country hostage to the passions of foreign lynch mobs? If your answer is some of form of 'yes,' than you might want to explain why U.S. citizens aren't justified in attacking Egyptian or Libyan embassies here in America. After all, I get pretty mad when I see goons burning the American flag, and I become downright livid when a U.S. ambassador is murdered. Maybe me and some of my like-minded friends should burn down some embassies here in Washington, D.C., or maybe a consulate in New York City? Of course we shouldn't do that. To argue that Americans shouldn't resort to mayhem, while suggesting it's understandable when Muslims do, is to create a double standard that either renders Muslims unaccountable savages ... or casts Americans as somehow less passionate about what we hold dear, be it our flag, our diplomats or our religions." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

An Exceptionally Good Liar

"One of the highly developed talents of President Barack Obama is the ability to say things that are demonstrably false, and make them sound not only plausible but inspiring. ... Now there are different kinds of liars. If we must have lying Presidents of the United States, I prefer that they be like Richard Nixon. You could just look at him and tell that he was lying. But Obama is much smoother. On this and on many other issues, you would have to know what the facts are to know that he is lying. He is obviously counting on the fact that, in this era of dumbed-down education, many people have no clue as to what the facts are. He is also counting on something else -- namely, that the pro-Obama media will not expose his lies. One of the many ways of lying smoothly is to simply redefine words. Barack Obama is a master at that as well. ... It would be hard to become nostalgic about Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign in disgrace. But at least you could tell when he was lying. Obama's lies are just as big but not as visible, and the media that exposed Nixon is covering for Obama." --economist Thomas Sowell

A Little Political Humor Courtesey of The Patriot Post

"President Obama compared himself to Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in the struggle to bring about change. The comparison is flawed. They spent years in jail before taking political power, while politicians from Chicago do it the other way around." --comedian Argus Hamilton

"One of Warren Buffet's companies owes the government $300 million in unpaid taxes. So that's why Buffet doesn't mind higher taxes on the rich: He's not gonna pay 'em anyway." --NewsBusted's Jodi Miller

"The Air Force is pulling nine cargo aircraft from military operations to support President Obama's stepped-up visits to campaign events. Good. Now he can carry his entire ego with him on the trail." --Fred Thompson

"They say gasoline could be $6 a gallon. But the good news is the White House says President Obama is aware of the problem, and will continue to talk about it between fundraisers." --comedian Jay Leno

We'll Fight Them In the Desert; We'll Fight Them In the Valleys

We'll fight them until we're tired and then we'll take our cruise missles and go home.

Editorial Exegesis
Obama's goal in Libya: Stalemate

"The expectation of the world's lone superpower in a major military operation is 'stalemate.' Welcome to the era of the Obama 'smart war.' Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen has been warning that he is unclear of the 'endgame,' as the Daily Telegraph describes it, in Libya. The outcome of Operation Odyssey Dawn is 'very uncertain' and could end up as a stalemate that keeps Col. Moammar Gadhafi in power. Appearing Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press,' Mullen said U.S. force will mean that Gadhafi is 'going to have to make some choices about his own future.' Sounds like we're sending Dr. Phil over to Tripoli to give the longtime tyrant some tough love. ... The president says our military operations were 'authorized' by the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League. He didn't give the U.S. Congress -- the Constitution's authorizers -- even one of those bows he likes to perform in the presence of foreign gentry. Is one of the purposes of Operation Odyssey Dawn to illustrate the New Multilateralism -- i.e., a Change-We-Can-Believe-In U.S. foreign policy in which we never shoot until the U.N. Security Council gives permission? ... Libya seems to be 'a war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics,' as Obama said of Iraq. We've seen that passion on the covers of tabloid newspapers with Navy-released photos of Tomahawk cruise missiles and headlines like 'Take That!' As for the politics, it certainly would be convenient for the president to be able play the hawk as the 2012 election approaches."

--Investor's Business Daily

Who Comes Up With These Names?

We were sitting in a resturant in DC Saturday afternoon when we got the news about coalition forces launching airstrikes against Libyan forces loyal to Kuhdaffy. The chiron at the bottom of the screen said that "Operation Odyssey Dawn" has commenced and the hammer was down. (Not The Hammer. She's never down, unles its called for and then she's down for most anything Uncle J and I can dream up)

I turned to my trusted source for all things military, Uncle Jimbo, and asked who the heck comes up with the names for thes missions. He didn't know.

Well, apparently, there were several mission names that didn't make the first round. Patriot Post has found the notes in a trash bin outside of the Wilmington Delaware AMTRAK station where Joe "Plugs" Biteme must have dropped them during a visit to "his" AMTRAK station.

In no particular order of importance, we humbly present them for your edification:

The White House tossed out a number of perfectly good names before arriving at "Operation Odyssey Dawn":

Maestro, drum roll if you please:

Top 10 Rejected Obama Mission Names
10.Operation Nine Months In The Senate Didn't Prepare Me For This
9. Operation Organizing for Libya
8. Operation Double Standard
7. Operation FINE! I'll Do Something
6. Operation Enduring Narcissism
5. Operation So That's What the Red Button Does
4. Operation France Backed Me Into A Corner
3. Operation Start Without Me
2. Operation Unlike Bush Wars This One Is Justified Because Hey Look A Squirrel
1. Operation Aimless Fury

There's just no pleasing some people.

Is It Deliberate?

Understanding the liberal mind and playbook as I do, I would have to say "Yes"; because the solution to this is drilling and it's the 800-pound gorilla in the room and they refuse to acknowledge it.

Government & Politics
Obama Indigestion Causing Gas Pains

The national average for gas is approaching $4 per gallon, once again causing pain at the pump. According to the U.S. Energy Department, the average yearly cost for an American family to fill up the car with gas will rise 28 percent from last year, or about $700. A family can't lose that much money without also losing the ability to buy other goods or services. The price of gasoline has skyrocketed by 67 percent since Barack Obama took office, but, needless to say, he isn't letting this crisis go to waste.

The fact is that Obama's energy policy is working exactly the way it was designed to work. His intent is to drive up the price of fossil fuels in order to make alternative energy sources seem more appealing. Alternative sources have been heavily subsidized for years and yet still can't rival fossil fuels, so, Obama reasons, prices on the latter must be driven higher.

In 2008, now-Energy Secretary Steven Chu said, "Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." Obama began work on that less than one month after taking office in 2009 by reversing George W. Bush's expansion of offshore oil drilling. When the BP Deepwater Horizon spill occurred in April 2010, the administration took this as a golden opportunity to enact a moratorium on offshore drilling. Despite multiple court rulings against that moratorium and even being ruled in contempt, however, the administration persists with its policy.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar put up the Left's favorite straw man, saying, "[W]e don't believe that the 'drill, baby, drill' program is the way that's going to get us to the energy independence that we need for America." No one says that domestic drilling on its own would achieve energy independence, but putting so much of our own oil off limits or underutilized -- offshore, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the Bakken Formation to name but a few examples -- certainly doesn't help.

The White House has countered by floating a proposal to release some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to bring down prices. This is a bad idea for two reasons. First, it doesn't replace domestic production, and, second, it would need to be replaced as expediently as possible, thus merely kicking the can down the road. In essence, the administration is admitting that supply must increase to offset price hikes, but in every other way, it's working against supply increases. Such rank indifference to the plight of ordinary Americans has become a White House hallmark.

Huh??

Sheila Jackson-Lee DFC-TX on the penalty for not having health insurance. Be sure to limber up before reading this; you might pull a muscle.

Verbal gymnastics: "I would make the argument, one, that instead it is an incentive to do right, that it is not penalizing because penalty is punishment. You're not punished if you have health insurance, in fact. And so you are, in fact, incentivized to have health insurance, rather than take the negative, which is to suggest that because we have a penalty you are being punished." --Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX

Contempt

"An administration that has no respect for Congress, the courts or the Constitution has been found in contempt for reissuing a drilling moratorium that a U.S. district judge found overly broad. The Obama administration's trouble with the courts has continued with a judge's ruling last week that the Interior Department's reinstating of a drilling moratorium followed by a de facto moratorium via an overly restrictive permitting process constituted contempt. The administration had issued a drilling moratorium in May in waters deeper than 500 feet after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off Louisiana that resulted in the spill of more than 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In June, Martin Feldman of the Eastern District Court of Louisiana struck down Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's original moratorium, saying it was overkill based on flawed reasoning. ... So the administration went back, rearranged a few words and a few deck chairs, and reissued its moratorium. That one was officially lifted in October, although the permitting process, which mysteriously includes shallow-water wells, has had the effect of continuing the moratorium. Feldman was not amused.

'Each step the government took following the court's imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance,' the judge said in his ruling. 'Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the reimposition of a second moratorium ... provides this court with clear and convincing evidence of its contempt.' ...

It is not so much that the Obama administration differs with the law, but that it considers itself above it -- even above the Constitution." (emphasis added)--

Investor's Business Daily

UCV Stands With Redstate and The Patriot Post

"[W]e pray for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, her family, and the other victims of the heinous violence in Arizona. It should not be, but the media, under the guise of 'a full exposition' of the evil in Arizona, is back to subtly and not so subtly pinning the blame for the attempted assassination of the Congresswoman and the related shootings on the tea party movement, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, me, you, and everyone right of center.

Let's be crystal clear: this is the supposedly objective news media doing this, not the openly, partisan left, though it is fueling the media witch hunt. And from what we now know, it is not just media malpractice, but a lie. Ironically, by perpetuating the lie -- by even treating it as a legitimate topic of consideration to revisit the accusations of violence and hate the media tried to run with prior to the November election -- that the right and the tea party incited this evil act, the left and media may very well incite violence against the right.

... But then there is the real culprit -- the shooter himself. A friend of the shooter's described the shooter as decidedly 'left-wing' as recently as 2007. On YouTube, he flagged as a favorite video one of a person dressed as a terrorist burning the American flag. Only a lunatic or a leftist would do that.

His favorite work was not a Glenn Beck book, but a staple of every left-wing bookshelf, the Communist Manifesto. In the Communist Manifesto, there are numerous, frequent calls for violence against the bourgeoisies.

... It is also not to say in any way, shape, or form that the guy is of the left. If, however, we take the evidence as presented and not as the media and left would have it presented, the shooter very clearly is not of the right.

More precisely, the shooter is neither left-wing nor right-wing.

He is crazy and evil -- a word not used enough. ... By the way, as an exit thought, the tea party movement won in November. Winners don't go on shooting sprees."

--Red State blogger Erick Erickson

Patriot Post-The Brief

Opinion in Brief

"The implicit argument for the legality of Obamacare is that the country hasn't taken the Constitution seriously in decades. So why start now? Since all branches of the federal government have colluded in ignoring and violating the Constitution for this or that 'good' cause over the years, why insist on returning to it? Nancy Pelosi relied on this implicit argument when she sputtered 'Are you serious?' to a question last year about Obamacare's constitutionality. Her scoff meant that the matter isn't even debatable anymore; America's de facto new Constitution -- the 'living' one that resides in the wills of modern pols and judges -- permits Congress to do anything it pleases in the name of the 'general welfare.' ... That Congress can establish whatever tax it pleases in the name of the 'general welfare' or ludicrously stretch the Commerce Clause to mean that nonactivity counts as regulatable 'interstate commerce' was rejected over 220 years ago. Forcing every person in every state into purchasing health insurance was not one of the enumerated powers of Congress." --columnist George Neumayr

Its a Dessert Topping, Its a Floor Wax, Its A Fine, Its NOT a Tax

"Legal arguments for Obamacare's individual mandate fail the 'Alice in Wonderland' test and the duck test. In two court challenges to the law in the past 11 days and a court hearing today on a third, the Obama administration's legal position is fading faster than the Cheshire Cat.

'The provisions of the Health Care Reform Act at issue here, for the most part, have nothing to do with the assessment or collection of taxes,' Judge Steeh ruled.

This is so important that the federal district judge in Florida, in Thursday's preliminary ruling in the second case, spent 22 pages analyzing it. If the fine is a penalty rather than a tax, Congress' power is far less extensive.

Judge Roger Vinson noted Congress repeatedly called the fine a 'penalty,' explicitly changing its description from a 'tax' that earlier versions of the bill assessed by name. Citing Alice's admonition to Humpty Dumpty that words can't 'mean so many different things' as Humpty intended, Judge Vinson concluded, 'Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing ... [only to] argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely.'

Judge Vinson explained that no matter what Congress called it, the assessment was designed to act as a punishment, not a revenue measure. Hence, it's not a tax.

His 22-page analysis is an exposition of the logic that if something is called a duck, acts like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck -- and the same goes for a penalty. The tax issue is vital because it's the Obama administration's fallback position if it loses on the first and biggest dispute, which is whether Congress has the power under the Commerce Clause not only to regulate commerce, but to force individuals to engage in specific commerce."

--The Washington Times

From the Patriot Post Daily Brief

Clinton-appointed District Court Judge Susan Bolton blocked most of Arizona's immigration law this week, ruling that it would "impermissibly burden federal resources." In other words, enforcing federal law is a violation of federal law. The preliminary injunction, she said, would merely preserve the status quo and be less harmful to immigrants than allowing the law to be enforced in full. The next step for Arizona is an appeal before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Bolton said that the Justice Department's suit was "likely to succeed on the merits."

Bolton blocked the primary provisions of the law -- including those requiring state law enforcement officials to check immigration status when other legitimate contact occurs, as well as the requirement that foreigners carry their papers at all times (federal law already requires this). On the other hand, 12 provisions, including some on human smuggling and transporting illegals, were left intact. All told, though, her ruling went even further than the DoJ had hoped.

The Department of Homeland Security is bound by federal law to "respond to an inquiry by a federal, state, or local government agency, seeking to verify or ascertain the citizenship or immigration status ... for any purpose authorized by law, by providing the requested verification or status information." Yet Bolton wrote, "An increase in the number of requests for determinations of immigration ... will divert resources from the federal government's other responsibilities and priorities." Or as National Review put it, "she accepts Justice's implicit argument that it's not the letter of the federal law that matters, but what parts of the law the executive decides to enforce."

National Review concludes:
The bottom line is that Arizona wants to enforce the law against illegal aliens. It wants them to be cognizant of the fact that the state is serious about the law, and therefore to conclude that it's best to leave or not come in the first place. Arizona did not deem these people illegal aliens. The federal government did, in laws passed by Congress and signed by the president of the United States. Arizona thinks those laws mean something. If the Justice Department's suit -- and Judge Bolton's line of argument -- prevails, then we'll know that they don't. The real law of the land will be our current, de facto amnesty, imposed by executive whim.

For the administration, the bottom line isn't the law, but getting voters from the Hispanic bloc. With the help of their Leftmedia minions, they are succeeding.

Meanwhile, America's immigration system remains broken and in desperate need of repair -- preferably by those who value and uphold the Rule of Law.

Part 2 of Mark Alexander's Essay

If we expect to bequeath liberty to our posterity, then we must dedicate our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to uphold the primacy of free enterprise over socialism, to defend Essential Liberty and to restore constitutional Rule of Law.

Be assured, should we fail to rise to the current challenge, the terminus of the Obama Plan is tyranny.

Barackracy, Part 2
Reversing Course and Restoring Liberty

In Part 1 of this essay, "Breaking the Back of Free Enterprise," I noted, "Barack Hussein Obama's macro agenda to accomplish the 'fundamental transformation of America' is to break the back of capitalism and, in the ensuing crisis, use government intervention to replace it with a more refined socialist economic framework than the one currently in place."

I then posited the question, "Is there still time to restore the primacy of free enterprise over Socialism and turn back Obama and his Leftist ilk?"

The short answer is yes. I believe there is still time to implement political solutions to reverse course and restore Essential Liberty, constitutional Rule of Law and its economic expression, free enterprise. But that window is closing.

There is an economic catastrophe on our horizon, (the Obama Plan), one whose full force will likely be felt in the next few years. It will bring with it massive increases in taxation and income redistribution accompanied by inflation of the cost of goods and services and, ultimately, centralization of the economy through complete regulation of every economic sector. This scenario will be modeled after Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but it will be so massive as to fully institutionalize Socialism on a national scale.

That's the bad news.

The good news is there exists a solution, short of civil disobedience and revolution, to dispense with the Obama Plan. That solution is a revitalized national movement to restore constitutional integrity. That effort is now well underway bearing the Tea Party label -- not a political party, per se, but the advocacy of a set of principles to restore Rule of Law.

Our success will require a groundswell of action in the next few election cycles, and the seating of a majority of legislators who have both a firm understanding of the principles of Essential Liberty and a willingness to enact the bold and difficult legislation necessary to restore constitutional Rule of Law.

The most important of these legislative measures are outlined in the Patriot Declaration. These include the enumeration of specific constitutional authority for any and every act of the legislature, its compliance with our Constitution's standard for Federalism, the Tenth Amendment, and a complete overhaul of our system of taxation.

In other words, the only way to undermine the Obama Plan is to reduce the size and scope of central government such that it comports once again with the plain language of our Constitution. In fact, this conversion to a government whose powers are, as our Constitution's principal author James Madison declared, "few and defined," will necessarily collapse its size.

However, our Constitution's prescription for central government authority and its proscription against exceeding that authority have been eroded for generations. It will thus take time to restore the Rule of Law, but restoration is the only option if our legacy of liberty is to be extended to future generations.

The alternative is, most certainly, tyranny.

The "Cycle of Democracy," attributed to 18th-century Scottish historian Alexander Tytler, follows this sequence: "From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty [Rule of Law]; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage [rule of men]."

The consequences of complacency and apathy are, indeed, dependency and bondage.

The choice that all Americans face today was aptly described by Ronald Reagan in his timeless challenge to conservatives, "A Time for Choosing": "You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right, There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism."

Now, as then, Leftists decry the Reagan model for restoration, cutting taxes to grow the economy, as "trickle-down economics." But the Reagan Plan resulted in the largest peacetime economic surge in American history.

To be sure, the Democrat-controlled legislature refused to enact the spending cuts Reagan called for, and this led to what were then record deficits. Those deficits, however, pale in comparison to the debt of the Obama Plan, which can only result in "trickle-up poverty."

Alexis de Tocqueville once observed, "Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."

Today, the once noble Democrat Party seeks only to forcibly reduce the people they pretend to serve to restraint and servitude.

In 1916, a minister and outspoken advocate for liberty, William J. H. Boetcker, published a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots, which fittingly contrasts the competing political and economic factions today: You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

It is a hard, undeniable truth that the federal government cannot give to anybody what it does not first take from somebody else, and the power to do so is ruinous. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, we must "prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them."

Further, the debt and taxation crisis we face today was a prospect of great concern to our Founders at the dawn of our Republic. In Jefferson's words, "Taxes should be continued by annual or biennial reenactments, because a constant hold, by the nation, of the strings of the public purse is a salutary restraint from which an honest government ought not wish, nor a corrupt one to be permitted, to be free. ... Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands. ... The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression. ... We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. ... I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."

In 1824, Jefferson concluded, "I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." What would he say today?

Our Constitution, and Rule of Law it was meant to ensure, has suffered great injury as a result of national complacency and apathy.

So we must once again choose.

Which will it be, freedom or totalitarianism, the Reagan Plan or the Obama Plan?

If we expect to bequeath liberty to our posterity, then we must dedicate our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to uphold the primacy of free enterprise over socialism, to defend Essential Liberty and to restore constitutional Rule of Law.

Will enough conservatives be seated in Congress this election cycle to stop, or even reverse, the Obama agenda? Stopping, at the very least, is mandatory. Reversing, while a daunting challenge, is achievable and must be the sole focus of every Patriot in the coming election cycle.

Be assured, should we fail to rise to the current challenge, the terminus of the Obama Plan is tyranny.

So, fellow Patriots, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve."

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post

Re-Posted In It's Entirety

Alexander's Essay – July 8, 2010
Barackracy, Part 1
Breaking the Back of Free Enterprise

Folks with extensive training in strategic analysis tend to have a very different viewpoint of the macro-political machinations from that of folks in the trenches who have a more tactical perspective. As such, strategic viewpoints are many times received with great skepticism.

At ground level, for example, one might have a problem with the following strategic analysis: It would appear that Barack Hussein Obama's macro agenda for the U.S. economy is to break the back of capitalism and, in the ensuing crisis, use government intervention to replace it with a more refined socialist economic framework than the one currently in place.

If that analysis makes you uncomfortable, prepare to become far more so if his agenda succeeds.
As one with excessive formal training in the art of strategic analysis, I can assure you that Obama's plan, as outlined above, is progressing on schedule.

In regard to the failing economy, Obama recently said, "Make no mistake, we are headed in the right direction, but ... we're not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans."

Many people hear those words and interpret them to mean that we're progressing toward economic recovery. However, the strategic analyst hears that the Left's objective of a socialized economy is just upon the horizon, that Obama and company would like to bring it to dock at a much faster pace and with such forceful momentum to ensure that the "fundamental transformation of America" can't be undone.

House Minority Leader John Boehner gets it. In regard to House Democrats' passage of Obama's so called "economic reform plan," Boehner responded, "The writing is on the wall for President Obama's 'stimulus' policies and everyone -- taxpayers, economists, and the rest of the world -- sees it but him. How much longer are we going to continue with this disastrous spending spree that is scaring the hell out of the American people and piling debt on our kids and grandkids?"
Answer: As long as it takes to fulfill their Leftist agenda.

"We had to take some tough steps to pull the country out of the free fall we faced when I took office," says the blame-shifting Obama.

For the record, the current economic debacle began with a crisis of confidence in the U.S. housing and security markets -- a crisis largely driven by Democrat policies and their refusal to rein in the government-sponsored mortgage enterprises known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The ensuing financial market collapse in the weeks ahead of the 2008 presidential election resulted in the selection of a charismatic radical Leftist community organizer as president of the United States.

Commenting on the agenda of his newly elected boss, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said infamously, "Never allow a crisis to go to waste." And they haven't.

It is no small irony that on the very day Obama asserted the economy is "headed in the right direction," the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office reported, based on the implementation of Obama's "economic recovery" agenda thus far, that the current accumulation of debt will exceed 100 percent of gross domestic production by 2025, and will total almost twice GDP by 2035.

But not to worry, I suspect our economy will collapse long before our national debt reaches that level. The burden of debt accumulation at current levels makes the current economic problems of socialist European states seem like gnats on an elephant's ... uh, rear.

The CBO report concludes, "Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to higher interest rates, more borrowing from abroad, and less domestic investment -- which in turn would lower income growth in the United States. Growing debt would also reduce lawmakers' ability to respond to economic downturns and other challenges. Over time, higher debt would increase the probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government's ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money."

In other words, unless Obama's agenda is overturned, the U.S. will one day be a subsidiary of Red China.

On the principles of free enterprise, Obama proclaims, "We already tried the other side's ideas. We already know where their theories led us. And now we have a choice as a nation. We can return to the failed economic policies of the past, or we can keep building a stronger future. We can go backward, or we can keep moving forward. I don't know about you, but I want to move forward."

Obama apparently hopes a majority of Americans have no idea where the Left's theories led in places like the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, he's probably right, given that many of his constituents are little more than sycophantic lemmings, having been sufficiently dumbed down in our government-run education institutions.

Obama's primary co-conspirator in this extra-constitutional folly to undermine the economy is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she of the following ridiculous claim: "When I became Speaker of the House, the very first day we passed legislation that made Paygo the rule of the House. The federal government will pay as it goes."

In other words, she promised that Congress would not pass unfunded spending bills. But that would mean either radically reining in spending, or implementing vast new tax initiatives on virtually all income earners, which she and Obama promised they would not do. Thus, Pelosi's Congress has added more than $1 trillion to the national debt, taking the U.S. Debt Clock beyond the $13 trillion mark.

To put their plan into perspective, national debt was about 40 percent of GDP when Obama took office, but with the economic recession resulting in greatly reduced tax revenues, the national debt will be 62 percent of GDP by the end of this year. That would be an increase of more than 50 percent in just two years. (I recommend you read this paragraph at least twice!)

For a complete analysis of federal waste, see the Heritage Foundation's study, "30,543 Reasons Spending Is Out of Control."

To make matters worse, Obama continues to inflate the bloated central government beyond any recognition of its constitutional authority even as American families and businesses must cut back to make ends meet. Adding insult to injury, non-military federal employee salaries are now 40 percent higher than private sector salaries on average, and while private sector benefit packages average $9,882, government employee benefits average $32,115.

This week, Obama laughingly launched his annual "SAVE" Award dog and pony show, ostensibly encouraging federal employees to recommend how to save taxpayer dollars. I have more than a few ideas, but Obama did not ask taxpayers how to save taxpayer dollars.

That old sage Will Rogers once quipped, "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." If he only knew...

Demonstrating the extent to which government has exceeded its constitutional mandate, my colleague Walter Williams wrote, "In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.' He later added, '[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.'"

Professor Williams concludes, "Two hundred years later, at least two-thirds of a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget is spent on charity or 'objects of benevolence.'"

Is there still time to restore the primacy of Free Enterprise over Socialism and turn back Obama and his Leftist ilk?

The short answer is, yes. Next week Part 2 of this essay, "Reversing Course and Restoring Liberty," will clearly outline how to restore the constitutional role of government.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!
Mark Alexander
Publisher, The Patriot Post

Patriot Post

Upright
"True judicial restraint asks the question: 'What does the Constitution actually say?' and then limits Supreme Court decisions to an honest application of the law." --David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society and former congressman from Indiana

"It will be tempting but futile to ask [Elena] Kagan whether she thinks Congress's enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce is elastic enough to justify requiring individuals to buy health insurance. That is, does the power to regulate interstate commerce give Congress the power to punish the inactivity of not making a private purchase from a private health-care provider? If the commerce clause is sufficiently elastic, in what sense do we still have limited government -- government limited by the Constitution?" --columnist George Will

"Some of the senators -- not most, but some -- will be interested to know what [Kagan] thinks of the Constitution as the Founders wrote it. President Obama will want her to rule on the law as decent and high-minded folk like him think it ought to be, not what it is. The gay community, which rarely seems very gay, expects her to be a reliable vote for changing the definition of marriage and for remaking the military into something Barney Frank can be proud of. Since Mzz Kagan has argued that the Supreme Court's role is mainly to tend the interests of 'the despised and disadvantaged,' somebody will be disappointed." --Washington Times editor emeritus Wesley Pruden

"What we're seeing in Greece is the death spiral of the welfare state. This isn't Greece's problem alone, and that's why its crisis has rattled global stock markets and threatens economic recovery. Virtually every advanced nation, including the United States, faces the same prospect. Aging populations have been promised huge health and retirement benefits, which countries haven't fully covered with taxes. The reckoning has arrived in Greece, but it awaits most wealthy societies." --columnist Robert J. Samuelson

"Anyone who thinks Greece isn't the proverbial canary in the coal mine is in a coma. See if this sounds familiar: out-of-control spending, a bloated, self-entitled public service sector, a mountain of accumulated debt, trillions of dollars in unfunded mandates -- and a corrupt political class completely out of touch with the people. With precious few exceptions, what nation couldn't be plugged into the above description?" --columnist Arnold Ahlert

"Have you ever noticed how liberals desire to be judged by open minds and met with understanding when their policies fail, while all the while they've zero tolerance for anything less than perfection in their political opponents? If so, you only have to remember they view 'big oil' as an appendage of the Republican Party to know that one major spill in forty years is no better in their eyes than one major spill every two years." --columnist AWR Hawkins

The Chronicle - Mark Alexander

Dezinformatsia

Stirring the melting pot: "Now to the growing national backlash against the state of Arizona over its tough new immigration law that says police can stop people just on the suspicion they might be there illegally." --NBC's Brian Williams

"It's now gone beyond protest to threats of a boycott, as Arizona becomes a laughing stock to some." --NBC's Andrea Mitchell

"Critics are having a field day with this, Sheriff Arpaio, as you know. Some are calling for a business boycott of the state of Arizona. The Homeland Security Secretary, used to be the governor of Arizona, says she doesn't like this, this bill. Editorial cartoons are making fun of it. Here's one where a guy goes up to a fast food counter and orders nachos and is immediately surrounded by police for probable cause. Are you worried that it affects the image of your state?" --NBC's Matt Lauer to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio

"Let me talk about the politics of this. It's forcing the president to address immigration policy. It's forcing Republicans and Democrats to wrangle with it. But what really is driving voters and emotion right now are jobs and the economy. Is this a bad issue politically at this time?" --MSNBC's Contessa Brewer

"Law Makes it a Crime to be Illegal Immigrant." --MSNBC on-screen caption -- begging the question, "What part of 'illegal' doesn't MSNBC understand?"

Blame Rush Limbaugh: "I think it is fair [for Bill Clinton to blame Rush Limbaugh and other talk hosts for inciting violence]. There is a climate of violence on the right. Liberals are demonized in the most personal way. I mean, you know, Rush comes out and has this wonderful op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal at the end of the week and saying, you know, 'conservatives are protesting because we love our country,' and unfortunately the rhetoric of the right has all too often been they love their country and we on the left do not. We are traitors, we are un-American, we are unpatriotic. Obama is weakening our national defense on purpose." --Salon's Joan Walsh

Thomas Sowell

Opinion in Brief

"The corrupt manner in which this massive legislation was rammed through Congress, without any of the committee hearings or extended debates that most landmark legislation has had, has provided a roadmap for pushing through more such sweeping legislation in utter defiance of what the public wants.

Too many critics of the Obama administration have assumed that its arrogant disregard of the voting public will spell political suicide for Congressional Democrats and for the President himself. But that is far from certain.

True, President Obama's approval numbers in the polls have fallen below 50 percent, and that of Congress is down around 10 percent. But nobody votes for Congress as a whole, and the President will not be on the ballot until 2012.

They say that, in politics, overnight is a lifetime. Just last month, it was said that the election of Scott Brown to the Senate from Massachusetts doomed the health care bill. Now some of the same people are saying that passing the health care bill will doom the administration and the Democrats' control of Congress. As an old song said, 'It ain't necessarily so.'"

--economist Thomas Sowell

Charles Krauthammer

The Last Word

"As the night follows the day, the VAT cometh. With the passage of Obamacare, creating a vast new middle-class entitlement, a national sales tax of the kind near-universal in Europe is inevitable.

... As Obama has repeatedly insisted, the real money is in health care costs -- which are now locked in place by the new Obamacare mandates. That's where the value-added tax comes in. For the politician, it has the virtue of expediency: People are used to sales taxes, and this one produces a river of revenue.

Every 1 percent of VAT would yield up to $1 trillion a decade (depending on what you exclude -- if you exempt food, for example, the yield would be more like $900 billion). It's the ultimate cash cow.

Obama will need it. By introducing universal health care, he has pulled off the largest expansion of the welfare state in four decades. And the most expensive.

Which is why all of the European Union has the VAT. Huge VATs. Germany: 19 percent. France and Italy: 20 percent. Most of Scandinavia: 25 percent. American liberals have long complained that ours is the only advanced industrial country without universal health care. Well, now we shall have it. And as we approach European levels of entitlements, we will need European levels of taxation."

--columnist Charles Krauthammer

Happy Now?

A New Declaration of Patriotism

The Patriot Declaration

Across our great nation, there is a groundswell of protest against the leftist agenda of those now holding power in the Executive and Legislative branches of the central government.

The tenor of this grassroots movement is growing louder as its number swells and its purpose becomes defined. It is a protest characterized not by a roar for revolution, but by a clarion call for restoration -- repair of our Constitution's authority and return to its standard for Rule of Law.

George Washington proclaimed, "The Constitution, which at any time exists 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all."

Further, as Alexander Hamilton made clear in Federalist No. 81, "[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution...."

Much less so is there any provision for the Executive or Legislative branches to rely upon interpretation of such language as that in the "Commerce Clause" to justify all manner of government intrusion, such as the newly implemented nationalization of health care.

The rest of it is here.