Wednesday, November 24, 2010

U.S. Supreme Court confers on Obama eligibility

BORN IN THE USA?

Is president a 'natural-born citizen' as Constitution requires?

By Brian Fitzpatrick
© 2010 WorldNetDaily



WASHINGTON – Is this the case that will break the presidential eligibility question wide open?

The Supreme Court conferred today on whether arguments should be heard on the merits of Kerchner v. Obama, a case challenging whether President Barack Obama is qualified to serve as president because he may not be a "natural-born citizen" as required by Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution.

Unlike other eligibility cases that have reached the Supreme Court, Kerchner vs. Obama focuses on the "Vattel theory," which argues that the writers of the Constitution believed the term "natural-born citizen" to mean a person born in the United States to parents who were both American citizens.

"This case is unprecedented," said Mario Apuzzo, the attorney bringing the suit. "I believe we presented an ironclad case. We've shown standing, and we've shown the importance of the issue for the Supreme Court. There's nothing standing in their way to grant us a writ of certiorari."

If the Supreme Court decides to grant the "writ of certiorari," it may direct a federal trial court in New Jersey to hear the merits of the case, or it may choose to hear the merits itself. The court's decision on the writ could be announced as early as Wednesday.

If any court hears the merits of the case, Apuzzo says it will mark the "death knell" for Obama's legitimacy.

"Given my research of what a natural-born citizen is, he cannot be a natural-born citizen so it's a death knell to his legitimacy. What happens on a practical level, how our political institutions would work that out, is something else," Apuzzo told WND.

Apuzzo observed it is "undisputed fact" that Obama's father was a British subject.

A hearing on the merits "is also a death knell because it would allow discovery so we would be able to ask him for his birth certificate, and we don't know what that would show," according to Apuzzo. "We might not even get to the question of defining 'natural-born citizen.' If he was not born in the U.S., he'd be undocumented, because he's never been naturalized. We don't even know what his citizenship status is. Hawaii has said they have his records, but that's hearsay. We have not seen the root documents."

Another attorney who has brought Obama eligibility cases to the Supreme Court, Philip Berg, agrees that discovery would sink Obama's presidency.

"If one court had guts enough to deal with this and allow discovery, Obama would be out of office," Berg told WND. "We would ask for a lift of Obama's ban on all of his documents. The last official report said Obama has spent $1.6 million in legal fees [keeping his papers secret], and the total is probably over $2 million now. You don't spend that kind of money unless there's something to hide, and I believe the reason he's hiding this is because he was not born in the United States."

"The Supreme Court has never decided to hear the merits of an eligibility case," Berg added. "If the Supreme Court would decide to hear a case, Obama would be out of office instantly. If Congress decided to hear a case, Obama would be out of office."

"They're taking a different approach, arguing that both parents must be citizens," Berg noted.

Apuzzo is arguing the "Vattel theory," which asserts that the term "natural-born citizen" as used in the Constitution was defined by French writer Emer de Vattel. Vattel, whose work, "The Law of Nations," was widely known and respected by the founding fathers, used the term to mean an individual born of two citizens.

According to Apuzzo, Congress and the courts have addressed the question of who can be an American citizen, for example regarding former slaves, Asian immigrants, and American Indians. However, the term "natural-born citizen" has never been altered.

"The courts and Congress have never changed the definition," said Apuzzo. "The founding fathers understood that the commander-in-chief of the armed forces needed to have two American citizens as parents so that American values would be imparted to him."

Apuzzo said the Supreme Court had clearly accepted Vattel's definition of "natural-born citizen" in "dicta," or statements made in opinions on cases addressing other matters. He cited Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall's opinion in the 1814 "Venus" case, in which Marshall endorses Vattel's definition.

Apuzzo also cites the writings of founding father David Ramsay, an influential South Carolina physician and historian who used similar language to Vattel.

Previous cases challenging Obama's eligibility have all been rejected on technical grounds. Numerous courts have decided that the plaintiffs do not have "standing" to bring a suit against Obama because they have failed to prove they are directly injured by his occupation of the Oval Office.

"To me that's false," said Berg. "The 10th Amendment refers to 'we the people.' If the people can't challenge the president's constitutionality, that would be ridiculous."

"My clients have a right to protection from an illegitimately sitting president," said Apuzzo. "Every decision he makes affects the life, property, and welfare of my clients."

Apuzzo said the founding fathers had good reason to require the president to be a natural-born citizen.

"They were making sure the President had the values from being reared from a child in the American system, and thereby would preserve everybody's life, liberty and property in the process.

"They made that decision, so my clients have every right to expect the president to be a natural-born citizen. It goes to all your basic rights, every right that is inalienable. The president has to be a natural-born citizen."

Monday, November 22, 2010

The reckoning: This single report could sink Obama's presidency

WorldNetDaily Exclusive

BORN IN THE USA?


Free, landmark summary explains eligibility issue clearly,suggests what you should do


There have been billboards, posters, questions at White House press briefings, "jokes" about it by the mainstream media and a ton of lawsuits and other challenges – including several pending.

But, come on, is there really the possibility that Barack Obama doesn't meet the requirements of the U.S. Constitution to occupy the hallowed Oval Office?

That question and many others surrounding the constitutional issue of presidential eligibility are addressed in a new, free special report by WND.

GET THE REPORT

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=199373

"The citizens of the United States have a right to know if their president is constitutionally eligible to hold the office," says the report, now available from WND.

"Obama's hospital of birth, birth documents, passport and Social Security number are all in question, and his legal defense never addresses the merits of the eligibility challenges. Instead, Obama relies on procedural objections and compliant judges to get the cases thrown out of court," says the report.

"President Obama could quickly and easily resolve the issue by releasing his personal historical documents to authenticate his claims," it concludes.

So why hasn't he?

The dispute over Obama's eligibility arose even before the 2008 election. Several legal challenges questioned just exactly who is supposed to make sure that a political party's candidate – no matter how charismatic – actually qualifies.

WND has reported on the multitude of cases and continues to report on pending disputes.

The report suggests the issue will have to be resolved in a public fashion sooner or later.

"Despite a virtual blackout by the mainstream media, Obama's eligibility troubles have spread across America, and public opinion has gradually turned against the president. … More than a dozen U.S. House Republicans co-sponsored a bill … [to] require presidential candidates to prove their eligibility by providing a copy of their birth certificates," the report says.

Similar moves are developing at the state level. And a recent poll showed only 4 in 10 Americans believed Obama's own explanation of his birth and growing up years.

On the legal front is the dramatic case of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, who challenged Obama's eligibility as an Army officer and could face prison for his decision. The goal of his case, like others, is to reach the level of discovery, so that Obama's documentation becomes public.

Another pending case by attorney Mario Apuzzo alleges Congress failed its constitutional duties to make sure the president is qualified. Other cases in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had asked that the California Electoral College votes for Obama be thrown out.

The report includes:

* An explanation of how the issue developed around Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

* A review of the possible scenarios regarding Obama's birth, including his father's status as a British subject at the time of his birth and British law calling for Obama to be governed by that nation's provisions at the time.

* A discussion of "natural born citizen."

* An explanation of Obama's "Certification of Live Birth" posted on the Internet and how it falls short of providing proof.

* What those Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser "announcements" about Obama's birth in 1961 really mean.

* Why has no doctor or hospital come forward to speak of Obama's birth?

* Should state officials who claim to have "seen" Obama's "original birth certificate" be believed?

* What about those African newspapers that during his campaign called Obama "Kenyan-born?"

* Were they "slips of the tongue" when Michelle Obama called Kenya the land of her husband?

Obama's "official account of his identity and background is riddled with inaccuracy and unanswered questions," the report says. "Even Obama'sSocial Security number may very well be fraudulent. He has literally spent a fortune in legal efforts to avoid producing the documents that would verify his eligibility."

Lending credibility to the concerns being raised is the intense war fought by attorneys trying to keep information about Obama secret. Besides his original birth certificate, still concealed are his kindergarten records, Punahou School records, OccidentalCollege records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, client list from his time in private practice, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, his baptism records and his adoption records.

The report notes Obama "has gone to great efforts to sell the public on his own version of his life, but his story has been inconsistent. For example, according to Illinois state filings, when Obama registered as an attorney in 1991, he stated he did not have any former names. In fact, he had been known for several years as Barry Soetoro."

Just the facts that are not in dispute would create issues, the report notes:

"Assuming Obama's parents were Barack Obama Sr., a British subject of Kenyan origin, and Stanley Ann Dunham, an eighteen-year-old American woman, neither of his parents were qualified to transmit U.S. citizenship to him. Barack Obama Sr.'s foreign allegiance disqualified Dunham's mother from conferring U.S. citizenship under the law prevailing at the time. The law required any U.S. citizen having a child with a non-citizen to have been physically present in the United States for at least five years after the age of sixteen to automatically transmit American citizenship. Because neither parent could confer American citizenship to their son, Obama can only be a U.S. citizen if he were actually born in the United States."

It documents how at the time of the Constitution's writing, "natural born citizen" was understood to mean a person whose parents were both American citizens.

So has Obama proved he was born in the U.S?


GET THE REPORT


http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=199373

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Attacking “The Wealthy” Hurts Everyone

by Nicole Kurokawa

All eyes are back on Congress as the lame duck session continues. One topic on everyone’s mind: extending the Bush tax cuts. In fact, the showdown over the cuts is likely to be one of the biggest policy fights of President Obama’s term to date.

For months, the Administration officials said they would only accept an extension for the middle class, and fully intended to raise rates on “the wealthy” (defined as those making over $250,000 per year). So who are “the wealthy,” exactly?

In many cases, the “wealthy” are small businesses.

Given that many small businesses aren’t structured as formal corporations, their owners file as individual taxpayers – meaning they are subject to increases in the income tax rate. According to the Internal Revenue Service’s 2008 Statistics of Income Data, there are 30 million small business owners in the country – 22 million sole proprietors, and 8 million partnerships and S-corporations. Ryan Ellis, director of tax policy at Americans for Tax Reform, estimates that two-thirds of small business profits face tax rate hikes under the White House’s plan.

Those successful small businesses – the ones with profits – are the ones who hire workers. They are the ones who purchase goods and services from other companies. These are the people who will be hit with tax increases. In an increasingly interconnected economy, it is impossible to penalize the few without injuring many. Pillaging these businesses' profits will mean less expansion, fewer jobs, and diminished output and will decrease incentives to be successful.

Many “wealthy” small business owners are women. According to the Oct 2010 Department of Commerce report “Women-Owned Businesses in the 21st Century,” 6.7 percent of all women-owned firms had sales of $250,000 or above in 2002 – a year that boasted 6.5 million women-owned firms in total. Breaking those numbers down, that means that 435,500 women-owned firms saw sales of $250,000 or above. Given the number of women-owned businesses jumped to 7.8 million in 2007, that number is sure to rise (the Census Bureau will release more detailed data from 2007 regarding women business owners in December 2010). The report goes on to note, however, that women-owned businesses are often smaller than men-owned businesses, and "average sales/receipts for women-owned businesses are only 25% of average sales/receipts for men-owned businesses." With a narrower margin, higher taxes bills can mean the difference between staying open or shutting the doors for these companies.

The “wealthy” are also the upwardly mobile. Americans are an aspirational people. Although many Americans are not “wealthy” in the White House’s eyes, many would like to be. College enrollment continues to increase, demonstrating the priority that individuals place on education as the stepping stone to a better life.

In addition, entrepreneurship – the very essence of trying to better one’s station in life – has long been a hallmark of the American economy; the Small Business Administration’s September 2010 report “Global Entrepreneurship and the United States” ranks the U.S. third out of 71 countries on its Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index, which provides a comprehensive measure of entrepreneurship drawing on economic freedom, competitiveness, and entrepreneurial activity. Women have taken advantage of the United States’ business-friendly environment; according to “Women-Owned Businesses in the 21st Century,” between 1997 and 2007, the number of women-owned businesses grew 44 percent – twice as fast as men-owned businesses.

The American economy is extremely dynamic, and income mobility is considerable. A 2007 report from the U.S. Treasury Department notes “the analysis found that more than half of taxpayers (56 percent by one measure and 55 percent by another measure) moved to a different income quintile between 1996 and 2005.” Importantly, however, not only do people have the chance to move up, but the top bracket is not set. The report also states that, “the composition of the very top income groups changes dramatically over time. Less than half (40 percent or 43 percent by different measures) of those in the top 1 percent in 1996 were still in the top 1 percent in 2005.” Taxing the “wealthy” doesn’t just affect those at the top, but slows the ascent of those who dream of making it to the top, discouraging the innovation and hard work needed to grow the economy.

And bear in mind – although $250,000 seems like a high benchmark, it’s certainly possible for a couple of Chicago schoolteachers or public officials to hit that threshold.

Despite the government’s best efforts at class warfare, to attack “the wealthy” will only serve to slow the overall economy – hurting everyone in the process. In order to maintain the nation’s global competitiveness, it is critical to not raise rates on engines of growth and mobility. By penalizing the most productive members of society, small businesses, and entrepreneurs, our country’s leaders will discourage the virtues that made this country great. The only true solution to the nation’s
fiscal crisis is for the economy to grow – not to tax itself to irrelevance.

_____
Nicole Kurokawa is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum.

Friday, November 19, 2010

State GOP leaders grab issue of Obama eligibility

BORN IN THE USA?

Republican lawmakers, governors poised to demand documentation


By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

The GOP members of Congress who booted Democrat Rep. Nancy Pelosi from the speaker's seat when they took the majority in the U.S. House this month may be the least of President Barack Obama's concerns as the 2012 presidential campaign assembles.

That's because in Pennsylvania, and in at least a couple of other states, there are Republican-controlled Houses, Senates and governors' offices where being developed right now are plans to use state law to demand proof of constitutional eligibility from presidential candidates before they would be allowed on the state ballot.

From Pennsylvania, Georgia and Texas there already is confirmation of such plans. Arizona is likely to have the same plan, and other states are expected to be in the works as legislatures approach the dates when they will convene.

Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, there was excitement over the GOP majority of both houses of the state legislature as well as the governor's office.

Assemblyman Daryl Metcalfe told WND he is preparing to circulate a memo among his fellow GOP lawmakers for cosponsors for his proposal that would demand documentation of constitutional eligibility.

"We aren't sworn in until Jan. 4," he said. "Once we're sworn in we'll be introducing the legislation that would require presidential candidates to prove their natural born citizenship before they are allowed to file petitions to have their name on the state ballot."

He described it as a "problem" that there has been no established procedure for making sure that presidential candidates meet the Constitution's requirements for age, residency and being a "natural born citizen."

"We hope we would be able to pass this legislation and put it into law before the next session," he said.

He said any one of the states imposing such a requirement would be effective in solving his concerns.

"I think the public relations nightmare that would ensue if any candidate would thumb their noses at a single state would torpedo their campaign," he told WND.

Georgia

Another state that will be in play on the issue is Georgia, where Rep. Mark Hatfield confirmed to WND that he will have a similar proposal pending.

He had introduced the legislation at the end of last year's session to put fellow lawmakers on alert that the issue was coming.

"I do plan to reintroduce the bill," he told WND today. "We'll move forward with trying to get it before a committee."

In Georgia, Republicans hold majorities in both house of the legislature as well as "every constitutional statewide office," he noted.

"I would be optimistic that we can [adopt the legislation]," he said.

Hatfield said if only one or two states adopt such requirements, it readily will be apparent whether a candidate has issues with eligibility documentation or not. And while he noted a president could win a race without support from a specific state, a failure to qualify on the ballot "would give voters in other states pause, about whether or not a candidate is in fact qualified," he said.

"My goal is to make sure any person that aspires to be president meets the constitutional requirements," he said. "This is a first step in that direction."

Arizona


It was last session when the Arizona House of Representatives adopted a provision that would have required documentation of eligibility from presidential candidates, but the measure died through the inaction of the state Senate in the closing days of the session.

Sponsor Rep. Judy Burges told WND at the time that her plan would be renewed this session.

Texas

WND reported just days ago on a bill prefiled for the Texas Legislature by Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, that would require such documentation.

His effort was the first wave of a surging tide of developing questions that could be a hurdle to a second term for Obama, who escaped such demands last year when the Arizona Senate failed to act on a similar plan after the House approved it.

Berman's legislation, House Bill 295, is brief and simple:

It would add to the state election code the provision: "The secretary of state may not certify the name of a candidate for president or vice-president unless the candidate has presented the candidate's original birth certificate indicating that the person is a natural-born United States citizen."

It includes an effective date of Sept. 1, 2011, in time for 2012 presidential campaigning.

State Rep. Leo Berman

Berman told WND he's seen neither evidence nor indication that Obama qualifies under the Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural-born citizen," a requirement not imposed on most other federal officers.

"If the federal government is not going to vet these people, like they vetted John McCain, we'll do it in our state," he said.

He noted the Senate's investigation into McCain because of the Republican senator's birth in Panama to military parents.

Berman also said there will be pressure on any lawmaker who opposes the bill, since voters would wonder why they wouldn't want such basic data about a president revealed. And he said even if one state adopts the requirement, there will be national implications, because other states would be alerted to a possible problem.

"If Obama is going to run for re-election in 2012, he'll have to show our secretary of state his birth certificate and prove he's a natural-born citizen," he said. "This is going to be significant."

Berman said he's convinced there are problems with Obama's eligibility, or else his handlers would not be so persistent in keeping the information concealed.

A year ago, polls indicated that roughly half of American voters were aware of a dispute over Obama's eligibility. Recent polls, however, by organizations including CNN, show that roughly six in 10 American voters hold serious doubts that Obama is eligible under the Constitution's demands.

The Texas House is expected to be dominated by the GOP, with a roughly 2-1 margin, and Republicans will hold probably 19 of the 31 seats in the state Senate. The governor's office is Republican.

Other state plans also might be in the works but unannounced yet. Officials with the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures said they were not tracking bills in development, or "prefiled" bills.

Their monitoring will begin after the proposals formally are submitted, they said.

Last year, several other states listened to proposals that could have had an impact on eligibility documentation. In New Hampshire, officials wanted to require candidates to meet the "qualifications contained in the U.S. Constitution." In Oklahoma, lawmakers heard a plan to let voters decide the issue, and in South Carolina, the plan was to prevent candidates from being on the ballot unless "that person shows conclusive evidence that he is a legal citizen of the United States."

Further, several other states discussed requirements for candidates, but they did not specifically address the Article 2, Section 1 constitutional compliance, so it's unclear whether they would have addressed Obama's situation.

There also is Rep. Bill Posey's bill at the federal level.

Posey's H.R. 1503 states:

"To amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of President to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution."

The bill also provides:

"Congress finds that under … the Constitution of the United States, in order to be eligible to serve as President, an individual must be a natural born citizen of the United States who has attained the age of 35 years and has been a resident within the United States for at least 14 years."

The sponsors' goal is for the bill to become effective for the 2012 presidential election. The legislation now is pending in a House committee and has more than a dozen co-sponsors.

Officials today told WND the bill is pending, and plans are that it will be acted on through the committee process in the U.S. House.

Join tens of thousands of others who already have signed a petition to state lawmakers asking them to make sure the next president of the United States qualifies under the Constitution's eligibility requirements.

There have been dozens of lawsuits and challenges over the fact that Obama's eligibility never has been documented. The "Certification of Live Birth" his campaign posted online is a document that Hawaii is a document that has made available to those not born in the state.

The controversy stems from the Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

The challenges to Obama's eligibility allege he does not qualify because he was not born in Hawaii in 1961 as he claims, or that he fails to qualify because he was a dual citizen, through his father, of the U.S. and the United Kingdom when he was born and the framers of the Constitution specifically excluded dual citizens from eligibility.

Complicating the issue is the fact that besides Obama's actual birth documentation, he has kept from the public documentation including his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, baptism records and his adoption records.

There are several cases still pending before the courts over Obama's eligibility, including two that are scheduled to be discussed by the members of the U.S. Supreme Court. Others remain pending at the appellate level.

Those cases, however, almost all have been facing hurdles created by the courts' interpretation of "standing," meaning someone who is being or could be harmed by the situation. The courts have decided almost unanimously that an individual taxpayer faces no damages different from other taxpayers, therefore doesn't have standing. Judges even have ruled that other presidential candidates are in that position.

The result is that none of the court cases to date has reached the level of discovery, through which Obama's birth documentation could be brought into court.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Ron Paul: Cut out this Soviet-style nonsense

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES


Congressman launches bill, suggests searches
would cease if Obama, top officials had them


By Joe Kovacs


With a week to go until the Thanksgiving travel peak and Americans' anger continuing to rise over heightened airport-security measures, a U.S. congressman launched legislation today to end what he calls Soviet-style searches by the American government.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced the Air Traveler Dignity Act to protect Americans from physical and emotional abuse by federal Transportation Security Administration employees conducting screenings at the nation's airports.

"Something has to be done," Paul said. "Everybody's fed up. The people are fed up. The pilots are fed up. I'm fed up.""We have seen the videos of terrified children being grabbed and probed by airport screeners. We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled," he added.

"This TSA version of our rights looks more like the 'rights' granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens – right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms." Join more than 17,000 others in a petition demanding action against the intrusive airport screening procedures implemented by Janet Napolitano and send a letter to Congress, President Obama and others telling them exactly what you think about the issue.

Paul's legislation, H.R. 6416, is just two sentences long, stating:

No law of the United States shall be construed to confer any immunity for a federal employee or agency or any individual or entity that receives federal funds, who subjects an individual to any physical contact (including contact with any clothing the individual is wearing), X-rays, or millimeter waves, or aids in the creation of or views a representation of any part of a individual's body covered by clothing as a condition for such individual to be in an airport or to fly in an aircraft. The preceding sentence shall apply even if the individual or the individual's parent, guardian, or any other individual gives consent.

"My legislation is simple," Paul said. "It establishes that airport-security screeners are not immune from any U.S. law regarding physical contact with another person, making images of another person, or causing physical harm through the use of radiation-emitting machinery on another person. It means they are subject to the same laws as the rest of us."


Paul suggested the controversial screening techniques would vanish if top-ranking government officials were themselves subject to them.
"Imagine if the political elites in our country were forced to endure the same conditions at the airport as business travelers, families, senior citizens, and the rest of us. Perhaps this problem could be quickly resolved if every cabinet secretary, every member of Congress, and every department head in the Obama administration were forced to submit to the same degrading screening process as the people who pay their salaries."

The congressman says he warned at the time of the TSA's creation that an unaccountable government entity in control of airport security would provide neither security nor defend Americans' basic freedom to travel.

"Yet the vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats then in Congress willingly voted to create another unaccountable, bullying agency – in a simple-minded and unprincipled attempt to appease public passion in the wake of 9/11," he said. "Sadly, as we see with the steady TSA encroachment on our freedom and dignity, my fears in 2001 were justified."

Paul, a former Air Force flight surgeon and obstetrics specialist who has delivered more than 4,000 babies, also expressed concern about "the potentially harmful effects of the radiation emitted by the new millimeter wave machines," and said the solution for security at airports is not a government bureaucracy.

"The solution is to allow the private sector, preferably the airlines themselves, to provide for the security of their property,"
he said.

Paul isn't the only member of Congress outraged by the TSA's current search methods.

Rep. John Duncan
, R-Tenn., took to the House floor to say, "A nationwide revolt is developing over the body scanners at the airports, and it should."

Duncan said there's already plenty of security at the airport, and there was no need to spend up to $300 million to install 1,000 scanners.

"This is much more about money than it is about security," said Duncan, the former chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee and the current top Republican on the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit.

"The former secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, represents Rapiscan, the company which is selling these scanners to his former department. Far too many federal contracts are sweetheart, insider deals.

"Companies hire former high-ranking federal officials, and then magically, those companies get hugely profitable federal contracts. The American people should not have to choose between having full-body radiation or a very embarrassing, intrusive pat-down every time they fly, as if they were criminals."

But not everyone in Congress has such a harsh outlook on the enhanced measures.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., today called the hands-on probing of flyers' private parts "love pats."

"I'm wildly excited that I can walk through a machine instead of getting my dose of love pats," she said.

McCaskill was among a group of senators hearing testimony from TSA chief John Pistole.

"We know the terrorists' intent is still there," Pistole said, as he strongly defended the new procedures. "We are using technology and protocols to stay ahead of the threat and keep you safe. (Several near-misses by terrorists on airplane bombings) got through security because we were not being thorough enough in our pat-downs."

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINES

Big Sis Napolitano sued for 'degrading' searches

'Given the profane, intrusive, indecent nature, they are patently unreasonable'

By Bob Unruh
A lawsuit was filed today against Janet Napolitano and the Transportation Security Administration alleging that the invasive airport "security" procedures instituted at President Obama's instructions are "profane, degrading, intrusive and indecent" and are both "unreasonable and violative of the Fourth Amendment."

The case was filed in federal court for the District of Columbia by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute and others on behalf of two veteran pilots, Michael S. Roberts and Ann Poe.

The issue of the invasion of privacy demanded by the TSA at airport security checkpoints – passengers are given the option of an X-ray that reveals a virtually nude image for government agents to see or a hands-on-all-body-parts pat-down – has exploded in recent days. Join more than 15,000 others in a petition demanding action against the intrusive airport screening procedures implemented by Janet Napolitano and send a letter to Congress, President Obama and others telling them exactly what you think about the issue.

There are groups suggesting that people simply stop flying or, in a coordinated effort, demand the more time-consuming pat-downs on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the busiest day of the year in many airports. Napolitano has been busy defending the procedures, and a source in the U.S. Senate has told WND that the issue is likely to come up during a Transportation Committee hearing tomorrow regarding oversight of the TSA.

The review was scheduled in September as a routine hearing but was delayed. Now it is scheduled for tomorrow in Washington with the expectation that the thousands of constituent complaints that already have been delivered to members of Congress will get attention.

In the case on behalf of Roberts and Poe, the Rutherford Institute is asking the court to prohibit the Department of Homeland Security and TSA from continuing to use the invasive technology unlawfully. Both Roberts and Poe opted out of the revealing scans then declined to undergo what critics have described as a molestation. They ended up missing their flights because of the procedures, the lawsuit explains.

'Grotesque violation'

"Forcing Americans to undergo a virtual strip search as a matter of course in reporting to work or boarding an airplane when there is no suspicion of wrongdoing is a grotesque violation of our civil liberties, undermining our right to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents," said Whitehead.

"Indeed, TSA is forcing travelers to consent to a virtual strip search or allow an unknown officer to literally place his or her hands in your pants," he said.

An unscientific poll this week by Reuters revealed that 96 percent of the tens of thousands of people who participated simply would refuse to fly rather than go through the inspection procedures.

Whitehead explained that Roberts, a pilot for ExpressJet Airlines Inc., and Poe, who pilots a Boeing 777 for Continental, objected to the "virtual strip-search," as have many others passing through airport security.

"The only alternative to a WBI scan, which has been likened to a 'virtual strip-search,' is an enhanced pat-down in which TSA screeners press their 'open hands and fingers over most parts of an individual's body including the breasts, and uses the back of the hands when touching the buttocks. Additionally, officers slide their hands all the way from the inner thigh up to the groin until the hand cannot venture any higher because it is literally stopped by the person's groin,'" Whitehead's report said.

At the website Mediaite, even one of the nation's heroes, Capt. Sully Sullenberger of Hudson-splashing Flight 1549 fame, said, "I can tell you from my perspective as an airline pilot for three decades, this just isn't an effective use of our resources."

According to the Washington Examiner, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., one of the original TSA bill authors, said airports should opt out of the federal government screening.

"When the TSA was established, it was never envisioned that it would become a huge, unwieldy bureaucracy which was soon to grow to 67,000 employees," he said in the report. "As TSA has grown larger, more impersonal, and administratively top-heavy, I believe it is important that airports across the country consider utilizing the opt-out provision provided by law."

'Big Kabuki dance'

The report said Mica believes TSA now is creating "security theater," which was explained as "a show of what appear to be stringent security measures designed to make passengers feel more secure without providing real security."

"It's a big Kabuki dance," Mica said.

And he said the TSA's goal appears to be "passenger humiliation" more than proven security.

At Forbes, columnist Art Carden said the TAS should be put on the budgetary chopping block.

"Bipartisan support should be immediate. For fiscal conservatives, it's hard to come up with a more wasteful agency than the TSA. For privacy advocates, eliminating an organization that requires you to choose between a nude body scan or genital groping in order to board a plane should be a no-brainer," he suggested.

Would that compromise safety? "I doubt it," he wrote. "The airlines have enormous sums of money riding on passenger safety, and the notion that a government bureaucracy has better incentives to provide safe travels than airlines with billions of dollars worth of capital and goodwill on the line strains credibility."

Whitehead, while preparing his legal case, told WND earlier that the Transportation Security Administration's enhanced screening procedures were instituted through the work of Obama.

"Legislation has been proposed to mandate full-body scanners and make them the primary screening method in all U.S. airports by 2013, but Congress has yet to act on it," Whitehead said in a commentary.

'Thank President Obama'

"So we can thank President Obama for this frontal assault on our Fourth Amendment rights. Mind you, this is the same man who insisted that 'we will not succumb to a siege mentality that sacrifices the open society and liberties and values that we cherish as Americans,'" Whitehead said.

He said the Fourth Amendment's provisions make clear the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

"It's a huge civil liberties issue," he told WND. "In the United States, we've never before strip-searched – full-body strip searches – unless there's reasonable suspicion of some kind of criminal activity."

The case explains since the constitutional violations are preventing Roberts and Poe from earning a living, they need to be compensated and given "all other measures of damages legally allowed."

At Examiner.com, there was a report that the Electronic Privacy Information Center has pursued in court efforts to obtain information about the TSA's use of scanners.

As WND previously has reported, a website called OptOutDay.com is suggesting all passengers send a message to Washington on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving by demanding the individual searches rather than the X-ray scans.

WND reported just a day earlier about resolutions introduced in New Jersey demanding Washington review the TSA procedures and make the needed changes.

Just as state Sen. Michael Doherty and others in Trenton were announcing resolutions calling on Congress to review the TSA procedures and complaints from travelers, a former top TSA official admitted on a Fox News Channel appearance what many passengers already knew: The procedures are legally questionable.

'Nobody likes having their 4th Amendment violated'

Mo McGowan was asked if the government could find a reasonable compromise that could detect terrorists without molesting adults and children. "That's a great question," said the former director of TSA security operations. "I don't think that there is. We're not dictating these events that are occurring. Events are happening across the world … driving us as a society to have to go to these measures.

"I mean, nobody likes having their 4th Amendment violated going through a security line," he said. "But the truth of the matter is we're going to have to do it."

But Doherty told WND, "They appear to violate the constitutional right to privacy (4th Amendment). Taking naked pictures of men, woman and children? We think there are a lot of constitutional violations. Americans should not be treated like criminals." His state, he explained, has specific laws against unauthorized touching of people's private parts, "particularly when it comes to children."

"This needs to stop. The government is way over the top on this," he said. "It's time for elected officials to stand up and say, 'This is wrong. This needs to stop.'"

The resolutions, pending in the state senate and assembly, call on Congress to tell the TSA that the people must not be forced to give up their constitutional rights when they want to travel.

"What's next," Doherty asked. "Train checkpoints? Bus checkpoints. Checkpoints when you buy gas?

Listen to an interview with Doherty.

"Unless we stop this right now, we won't be able to walk across the street without going through checkpoints,"
he said.

In addition to a highly publicized petition in which thousands of people are joining to demand action against the intrusive airport screening as well as a campaign allowing Americans to efficiently send a letter to Congress, President Obama and others complaining of the privacy concerns, there was a poll by Reuters.

96% would change travel plans

Asked, "Are you less likely to fly because of stepped-up security procedures such as full-body scans and patdowns?" a stunning 96 percent (65,990 about of 68,809 respondents) said, "Yes, I will make alternate travel plans to avoid intrusive security scans and pat-downs."

Three percent said no, and 1 percent remained uncertain.

The evidence suggesting actual sexual assault also is on the rise. On a website run by a blogger, a woman identified as Erin explained what she experienced in Dayton, Ohio:

She (the TSA screener) felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to feel both of my buttocks. She reached from behind in the middle of my buttocks towards my vagina area.

She did not tell me that she was going to touch my buttocks, or reach forward to my vagina area.

She then moved in front of my and touched the top and underneath portions of both of my breasts.

She did not tell me that she was going to touch my breasts.

She then felt around my waist. She then moved to the bottoms of my legs.

She then felt my inner thighs and my vagina area...

She did not tell me that she was going to touch my vagina area…
"I asked to speak to a supervisor immediately. I had a very unpleasant conversation with him that lasted 20 minutes. I moved to the back of the security area, made a few phone calls, including to my lawyer. He did some quick research, and learned that I had indeed been sexually assaulted because she did not follow the SOP (standard operating procedure) for the new search," she reported. "I also spoke with the Dayton police, the Dayton airport police, and left a message for the TSA manager for the Dayton airport. I intend to request the TSA to arrange for counseling services to be provided to me, so I can deal with the aftermath of the sexual assault that took place, caused by the specific touching actions and failure to inform me of the policies by the TSA agent."

She continued, "I am speaking out against the TSA and share my sexual assault case to ensure that this does not happen to anyone else, anywhere. I will not be a silent victim of sexual assault by a TSA agent. Total Sexual Assault."

The admission by McGowan and justification from Napolitano followed by just a day a case that appeared on YouTube.

In that case, 31-year-old John Tyner refused a "groin check" by the TSA. In a comment that already probably is on bumper stickers, he said, "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."

Over recent days WND reported as dozens of other airline passengers shared their real-life horror stories of close encounters of the TSA kind, including a 70-year-old whose fudge "contraband" was discovered, a Los Angeles passenger who was "groped" four times and a man who was the target of a TSA screaming fit when he chose to opt-out of the "porno scan."

WND also reported on the growing movement by activists and citizens to push back against Napolitano's plans for "enhanced" screening at airport checkpoints.

A petition has been launched to tell President Obama, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and members of Congress all about the problem.

The petition targets the decision-makers in Washington who could bring the invasive procedures to a screeching halt.

"We, the undersigned, call for the immediate suspension of the enhanced security screening procedures and an apology to the American public by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for directing the implementation of this ill-advised program," says the petition.

Concerns over the invasion of privacy by TSA scanners, described as voyeurism by critics, along with the "molestation" of the associated "enhanced" pat-downs and the health concerns from the blasts of radiation have now reached a critical mass.

The procedures have been the focus of warnings even by the networks:

George Donnelly, who with James Babb has launched the "We Won't Fly" website delivering a message directly to airlines, told WND the customer revolt is taking off faster than he could imagine.

His website says, "We do not consent to strip searches, virtual or otherwise. We do not wish to be guinea pigs for new, and possibly dangerous, technology. We are not criminals. We are your customers. We will not beg the government anymore. We will simply stop flying until the porno-scanners are history."

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Tea Party's Winning Hand

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Other than being the highest-profile Republican victims of Tea Party candidates, what do Lisa Murkowski, Mike Castle, Charlie Crist and Arlen Specter have in common?

Other than being tea party insurgents who routed establishment Republicans in high-profile primaries, what do Joe Miller, Marco Rubio, Christine O'Donnell, Pat Toomey, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado and Mike Lee in Utah have in common?

The answer, writes Tim Carney of The Washington Examiner, is that all the former are pro-choice on abortion, all the latter pro-life.

Tea Party types and pro-life conservatives seem to be twins separated at birth. Carney continues: "Almost without fail the strongest advocates of limited government in Congress are pro-life and vice versa. Think of (Jim) DeMint and (Tom) Coburn in the Senate and Ron Paul and Jeff Flake in the House. They top the scorecards of the National Taxpayers' Union and also have perfect scores from National Right to Life."

Carney's point: While all Tea Party insurgents and Tea Party-backed candidates seemed to agree on the economic issues -- deficits, debt, taxes, Obamacare -- they also seem united on other issues. Looking at the down-ballot battles in 2010, being pro-life is just one of them.

Three Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled that the state constitution requires recognition of same-sex marriages were denied retention, and Gov. Terry Branstad campaigned for giving Iowans a referendum to decide if they wish to outlaw it.

Tea Party types and Iowa conservatives were not only opposed to the idea of men marrying men, they detest the idea of judicial dictatorship.

In Arizona, Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action initiative, which prohibits race, gender and ethnic preferences, won with 60 percent of the vote. Michigan, California and Washington have already adopted the Connerly amendment.

Tea Partiers also united to back the Arizona law that requires cops to determine the immigration status of any whom, in a routine police encounter, they suspect of being an illegal alien.

Passage of the law last April brought crazed comparisons with Nazi Germany. Opponents tended to go mute, however, when they learned that 70 percent of America stood with Arizona. GOP candidates for governor subsequently ran on pledges to adopt similar statutes.

In Oklahoma, a proposition to prohibit use of Shariah law in state courts passed with 70 percent. Shariah law is the basis of law in many Muslim countries, as the Bible was once the basis of much law in America.

What do these overlooked stories of Election Day 2010 teach?

Far more than the Beltway Right, the Tea Party is in tune with the heart of America -- not only on taxes, spending and Obamacare, but on social, cultural and moral issues. National Republicans may stay out of these bloody battles, but they hold great potential for bringing out voters and driving wedges through Obama's national base.

Consider. Establishment Republicans recoil from the issue of gay marriage. But, in 2008, while McCain was winning 5 percent of the African-American vote in California, blacks in California, urged on by pastors and preachers, voted 70 percent to outlaw same-sex marriage.

The pro-life position is also a far more popular cause among black and Hispanic Americans than is the Republican Party.

Oklahoma's prohibition against any use of Shariah law should be seen as a cry from the heart of America that we are and wish to remain a Western nation, a predominantly Christian country, and we wish to be ruled by our Constitution and laws enacted pursuant to it.

The national outpouring of support for Arizona after that state came under attack for its law requiring suspected illegal aliens to show ID demonstrates how explosive the immigration-amnesty issue is. Republicans should not run away from it, for our elites are further out of touch with the people on this issue than any other.

As for the Connerly amendment abolishing affirmative action, if the GOP wishes to win in 2012, the party will put this measure on every possible state ballot, especially crucial states like Pennsylvania and Ohio.

What this panoply of issues testifies to is the true identity of the Tea Party. These folks are not single-issue voters, and they are not motivated by pocketbook issues alone.

They have seen the America they grew up in virtually vanish.


Look at how far we have traveled.

We seem no longer able to balance our budgets, win our wars or secure our borders. Compared to what our culture was, it is a running sewer today. Working-class wages and middle-class incomes seem to have been stagnant for decades. Factories and jobs continue to hemorrhage to Asia. Company towns become ghost towns. Made in China has replaced Made in America. And as one drives through cities and suburbs, one encounters vast concentrations of people who speak some language other than our own.

The Tea Party people are rising up to take their country back, and that's why they're not going away.

_____
Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

Monday, November 15, 2010

Sharia-Compliant in America

by Gary Bauer

Liberal judges are increasingly looking to the laws of foreign countries to help them determine the outcomes of the legal cases before them in U.S. state and federal courts. It may not be long before they begin to write their opinions with an eye on the laws of foreign cultures, too.

Lost in the “shellacking” that Democrats took on Election Day was news of a first-of-its-kind state constitutional amendment passed in Oklahoma. Voters there passed an amendment that prohibits courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.

At first glance, the part of the amendment that prohibits Islamic law might seem unnecessary. There was no great movement among Oklahoma’s 30,000 Muslims to institute Sharia law. But there have been cases in America in which Islamic law has been considered.

In New Jersey recently, a family court judge refused to issue a restraining order against a Moroccan Muslim who had raped his wife. The judge concluded that no sexual assault had taken place because Islam forbids wives to refuse sex.

“This court believes,” the judge wrote in his opinion, “that [the husband] was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.”

Thankfully, an appellate court overturned this absurd decision.

The Oklahoma constitutional amendment, passed with 70 percent of the vote, was preemptive in nature. Preemptive of what? Perhaps that’s a question the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) could answer.

Its Oklahoma affiliate filed a lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles LaGrange issued a temporary restraining order to block the new amendment. The order will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a requested preliminary injunction.

Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR’s Oklahoma chapter, suggested that the amendment discriminated against “religious minorities” and that it would “infringe on the constitutional rights of ordinary Oklahomans—including the right to wear religious head scarves in driver’s license photographs, choose Islamic marriage contracts, implement Islamic wills, or to be buried according to one’s religious beliefs.”

But Sharia means much more than the right to wear a headscarf. Most constitutions of the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference Member States cite Sharia as a source of legislation. Not coincidentally, those countries’ governments are disproportionately represented among the world’s worst violators of human rights and religious freedoms.

Sharia was written into the new Iraqi constitution in 2005. It states that “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a foundation source of legislation. . . . No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.”

Iraq’s Chaldean and Assyrian Christians are on the verge of extinction because, as one Christian leader in Iraq put it last year, “It seems that Iraq is one step closer to becoming an Islamic state intolerant of non-Muslims.”

So-called moderate Muslims insist that Sharia means different things in different places. There’s truth to that. In Afghanistan, Sharia means stoning alleged adulterers. In Sudan, Sharia prescribes amputations for petty crimes. In Nigeria, Sharia means that blasphemers are burned alive in a ring of gasoline-soaked tires.

Some Muslims insist that Sharia would apply to Muslims only. In Great Britain, for example, numerous Sharia courts have been established to settle certain disputes among the country’s growing Muslim population.

But in Muslim-majority countries, Sharia is often applied not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims too. A Christian woman in Pakistan was recently sentenced to death for blasphemy after being convicted of defaming the Prophet Mohammed.

A woman in Iran faces stoning for alleged adultery. After an uproar ensued, Iran deputy foreign minister, Hassan Ghashghavi, said, “We live in an Islamic country and we act according to the Koran’s sentences. Even if 100,000 must be executed, we will carry out the Koran’s sentences.”

And what would happen to Muslims like the New Jersey rape victim who wish to be tried under civil rather than Islamic law?

It’s telling that at a time in America when Christian doctors are being ordered to set aside their religious beliefs in order to perform abortions, Muslims may be close to gaining more rights to elevate their religious precepts over civil law.

And at a time when American courts agonize over whether lethal injection may be too painful for coldblooded killers to endure, the religion of peace prescribes punishments aimed at inflicting as much pain as possible, often against the innocent.

Liberal judges have used foreign law in their decisions on everything from upholding race-based admissions at public universities to legalizing sodomy.

They are wrong to do so. We are a society based on Judeo-Christian principles of civilization. Neither modern Europe’s secularist bias nor the world’s Sharia-based Islamic regimes have anything better to offer than our own founding ideals.

____

Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for W orking Families.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Yesha Council Cartoon Tells Obama: Don't Play G-d

by Gil Ronen

A new cartoon history of the Jewish people packs 3,500 years into 3.5 minutes -- and ends with a message to US President Barack Obama. The cartoon was produced by the Yesha Council, a semi-official federation of the heads of local authorities in Judea and Samaria.



The Yesha Council under its present leadership -- Chairman Danny Dayan and Director Naftali Bennet -- earned a reputation for effective and creative advertising with a campaign a year ago that improved Judea and Samaria's public image. The campaign featured child actors dressed up as biblical figures and the slogan -- "Judea and Samaria, every Jew's story."

It now remains to be seen if the new cartoon will be similarly successful.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Veterans Day Thank You

by Jackie Gingrich Cushman


This week we celebrate Veterans Day, a day of appreciation and gratitude for all who have served in the United States Armed Forces.

My grandfather served as a career Army officer. My father grew up moving from base to base as his father was ordered to different locations by the Army. They lived in Kansas, Germany, France and Columbus, Ga., where my father graduated high school.

When I was young, we traveled as a family to the Panama Canal Zone, where my grandfather was stationed. I don't remember the canal, but I do remember playing cowboys and Indians with my Aunt Candy, who is six months older than I am.

We would run from tree to tree, taking cover and exchanging fire. Whoever was wounded or killed would pop back up a minute later, ready to get back in the battle.

This version of war was a child's game, full of innocence. We didn't understand that, in real life, war has terrible consequences. We just knew that, in the game we were playing, the bad guys lost and the good guys won.

The reality of war is different -- it's ugly, it's deadly, and unfortunately, sometimes it's unavoidable. When it is unavoidable, we are lucky to have men and women who are willing to serve our country and make the ultimate sacrifice, if necessary.

We are a nation born out of war. We declared ourselves independent from the British in 1776. It took us eight years to earn our independence from the British through the American Revolutionary War.

It is fitting that a book about George Washington's heroic service as commander in chief of the Continental Army comes out the week of Veterans Day -- "Valley Forge," by Newt Gingrich, my father, and Bill Forstchen. Washington was appointed the commander in chief in the spring
of 1775. Not only was he the commander in chief, but at the time, he was the only member of the Army.

"Washington is at the heart of American exceptionalism because it's at the heart of the American experience," said Dad this week. "Bill Forstchen and I wrote 'Valley Forge' because we think there's a tremendous lesson to learn from how Washington took the rejection of the British, which was the Declaration of Independence, and created the replacement of British military power with the modern American Army, which was an extraordinary achievement. ... Washington emerged as father of our country because he had the sheer courage to go through a winter at Valley Forge with 14,000 troops, no food, two axes initially to build housing, and his courage and his honor and dignity are the base in which this whole country resides. ... You can't imagine America without George Washington."

Our nation was born through the trials of war. The union was saved the same way.

Abraham Lincoln, elected Nov. 6, 1860, was determined to save the union. "The campaign had been impassioned and contentious. More than 80 percent of eligible voters turned out. Lincoln received 59 percent of the electoral votes, but less than 40 percent of the popular vote," I write in my upcoming book, "The Essential American: 25 Documents and Speeches that Every American Should Own" (Regnery). "In the 17 weeks between Lincoln's election and his Inaugural Address, seven states, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, seceded from the Union."

While he hoped for peace without war, he was determined to keep the nation united.

Lincoln's Inaugural Address placed the onus for potential war on the Southern states, "In your hands, my dissatisfied countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war."

War came.

Four years later, Lincoln was re-elected. He delivered his Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865.

"The dome that had been half-complete at the time of the first inaugural, with a crane sticking out of the top, had been completed. The Union Army had been victorious in recent battles, and the war's final outcome was all but determined. Slaves had been freed, and the Capitol was surrounded by the biggest crowd to date, with half of them reported as 'persons of color.'"

The clouds broke and the sun came out, as Lincoln began to speak. Through the guidance of divine providence, the leadership of Lincoln and the service of our soldiers, the union was saved.

As we remember and honor those who have served our country, we should remember that our country would not survive without the service of all our brave women and men.

Thank you for your service to our country.

____
To find out more about Jackie Gingrich Cushman, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security

by Michael Savage
How President Obama is destroying America from within -- and what we must do to stop him

Michael Savage is not one to mince words -- that's what's made him one of the most popular talk-radio hosts in America, and a four-time New York Times bestselling author to boot. Now, in his latest blockbuster, Trickle Up Poverty: Stopping Obama's Attack on Our Borders, Economy, and Security, Savage . . .well, savages President Barack Obama for everything he's doing to destroy our country from within. But unlike other books on Obama, Savage shows you specifically and in detail the numerous ways that Obama's policies affect you, your family, and the nation. Moreover, he goes beyond pointing out the problems Obama has created to offer a solid set of solutions.

"Barack Hussein Obama is tearing down everything that was built before this man was even born," writes Savage in his Preface. "Mark my words: History will show that Obama the Destroyer-in-Chief is impoverishing the middle class with taxation, regulation, and a desecration of our cherished freedoms. Moreover, as I will demonstrate in this book, Barack Obama is a naked Marxist-Leninist whose sole ambition in life is to transform America into the USSA: The United Socialist States of America."

For Savage, poverty is more than just an economic issue. As he sees it, Obama is destroying the country by creating a poverty of the body, mind, and spirit that impoverishes how we think, feel, and view ourselves as a people, while robbing our personal freedoms and bankrupting our clout as the leader of the world. Trickle Up Poverty shows how Obama is circumventing the Constitution to push through his radical agenda -- and, most important, how we can restore our country to the power and prestige that Barack Obama and his corrupt and degenerate "czars" are trying to destroy.

In Trickle Up Poverty
, Michael Savage reveals:

* Impoverishing the Middle Class: How Obama's confiscatory taxes, the socializing of our health-care system, and other legislative initiatives are taking away our earnings and our power to choose how we live our lives and putting it in the hands of corrupt and pro-Socialist cohorts

* Erasing Our Border with Mexico: How the Homeland Security department that can't shoot straight is gutting the Constitution in the name of protecting illegal aliens when it should be focusing on keeping out the terrorists and drug dealers

* Defunding the Military and Putting Our Troops in Harm's Way: How Obama's beatnik policy of taking apart our nuclear arsenal and destroying NASA, while implementing PC Rules of Engagement that don't allow our troops to protect themselves, is dangerously weakening our security and ending our military dominance

* Lining the Pockets of His Wall Street Buddies: How, while our 401(k)'s suffer, Obama and his Wall Street heavy contributors are creating their own legislation that is driving down stock prices while allowing his biggest campaign contributors to make trillions of dollars

* Propagandizing the Media:
How Obama's administration has systematically overrun the media, once a forum for free speech, in a hostile takeover with threats and false promises that serve only to pull the wool over the sheeple's eyes

* Ignoring the Tea Party—the Voice of the People: How Obama is blatantly disregarding, and even suppressing, the fastest-growing collective voice in the nation right now -- while his Union-Crony Purple Shirts have shown up at town-hall meetings and peaceful protests to intimidate and antagonize the democratic process

* Obama the Pan-Leninist: How Obama dreams of becoming the leader not of the free world, but the regulated world, in which everything from speech to health care to energy is controlled by a world government which he leads

And make no mistake, warns Savage: Unlike previous presidents who consulted with Congress seeking its cooperation to implement new initiatives, Obama operates as if his wishes are the law of the land. "As you'll see in this book, Barack Obama uses any means necessary -- including circumventing the Constitution -- to get his way. Why? He's living in a dream world acting as if his wishes are the sole determinant for the future of America."

Political Judges

by Thomas Sowell

Results of the recent elections showed that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with "public servants" who act as if they are public masters. This went beyond the usual objections to particular policies. It was the fact that policies were crammed down our throats, whether we liked them or not. In fact, laws were passed so fast that nobody had time to read them.

Whether these policies were good, bad or indifferent, the way they were imposed represented a more fundamental threat to the very principles of a self-governing people established by the Constitution of the United States.

Arrogant politicians who do this are dismantling the Constitution piecemeal-- which is to say, they are dismantling America.

The voters struck back, as they had to, if we are to keep the freedoms that define this country. The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution, by getting rid of those who circumvent it or disregard it.

The same thing applies to judges. The runaway arrogance that politicians get when they have huge majorities in Congress is a more or less common arrogance among federal judges with lifetime tenure or state judges who are seldom defeated in elections to confirm their appointments to the bench.

It was a surprise to many-- and a shock to media liberals-- when three judges on Iowa's Supreme Court were voted off that court in the same recent elections in which a lot of politicians were also sent packing.

These judges had taken it upon themselves to rule that the voters of Iowa did not have the right to block attempts to change the definition of marriage to include homosexual couples. Here again, the particular issue-- so-called "gay marriage"-- was not as fundamental as the question of depriving the voting public of their right to decide what kinds of laws they want to live under.

That is ultimately a question of deciding what kind of country this is to be-- one ruled by "we the people" or one where the notions of an arrogant elite are to be imposed, whether the people agree or not.

Those who believe in gay marriage are free to vote for it. But, when they lose that vote, it is not the role of judges to nullify the vote and legislate from the bench. Judges who become politicians in robes often lie like politicians as well, claiming that they are just applying the Constitution, when they are in fact exercising powers that the Constitution never gave them.

If they are going to act like politicians, then they should be voted out like politicians.

Media liberals
, who like what liberal judges do, spring to their defense. The media spin is that judges were voted off the bench because of "unpopular" decisions and that this threatens judicial "independence."

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The "Gridlock" Bogeyman

by Thomas Sowell

Whenever the party that controls the White House does not also control Capitol Hill, political pundits worry that there will be "gridlock" in Washington, so that the government cannot solve the nation's problems.

Almost never is that fear based on what actually happens when there is divided government, compared to what happens when one party has a monopoly of both legislative and executive branches.

The last time the federal government had a budget surplus, instead of its usual deficits, there was divided government. That was when the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, where all spending bills originate, and Bill Clinton was in the White House. The media called it "the Clinton surplus."

By the same token, some of the worst laws ever passed were passed when one party had overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, as well as being led by their own President of the United States. ObamaCare is a product of the kind of arrogance that so much power breeds.

It was the same story back in the famous "first hundred days" of the New Deal in 1933. The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 clamped down on the American economy the kind of pervasive government control seldom seen outside of totalitarian countries.

It was the ObamaCare of its time, but covering industries right down to local dry cleaners. One man was sent to jail for charging less than the government-specified price for pressing a suit of clothes. This typified the mindset of the New Deal.

Fortunately, the Supreme Court eventually declared the National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional. But, before that happened, the N.I.R.A. probably did more to prevent the economy from recovering from the Great Depression than any other law or policy. Even liberal icon John Maynard Keynes said at the time that the N.I.R.A. "probably impedes recovery."

You cannot tell what effect a law or policy will have by what politicians call it, whether they label it a "recovery" program or a "stimulus" program.

Those who fear gridlock in Washington today implicitly assume that government actions are needed to "solve" the economy's "problems." That assumption has been so pervasive over the past 80 years that many people fail to realize that the republic existed for nearly twice that long before the federal government intervened to get the economy out of a recession or depression.

During all that time, no depression ever lasted even half as long as the Great Depression of the 1930s, when first President Hoover and then President Roosevelt intervened.

For most of the history of this country, there was no Federal Reserve System, which was established in 1914 to prevent bank failures and the bad effects of large expansions or contractions of the supply of money and credit. But bank failures in the 1930s exceeded anything ever seen before the Fed was established. So did the contraction of money and credit during the Great Depression.

The seductive notion that some Big Daddy in Washington can solve our problems for us-- whether healing the sick, preventing poverty or "growing the economy"-- is encouraged by politicians for obvious reasons, and the media echo the idea.

Both in Washington and in the media, there is virtually zero interest in comparing what actually happens when the federal government intervenes in the economy and when it does not.

More than a century and a half of ignoring downturns in the economy never produced a depression as deep or as long as the 1930s depression, with its many federal interventions, first under Herbert Hoover and then under Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The unemployment rate was 6.3 percent when the first big intervention took place, during the Hoover administration. It later peaked at 25 percent, but its fluctuations were always in double digits throughout the 1930s, as FDR tried one thing after another. As late as the spring of 1939, nearly a decade after the stock market crash of 1929, unemployment hit 20 percent again.

It is not a matter of faith that a market economy can recover on its own. It is a matter of faith that politicians speed recovery. But there is no way that Barack Obama is going to stop intervening in the economy unless he gets stopped. Only gridlock can do that.

_______
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of The Housing Boom and Bust.

Congress report concedes Obama eligibility unvetted

BORN IN THE USA?

'There is no specific federal agency' to review candidates for federal office

By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

A congressional document posted on the Internet confirms no one – not Congress, not the states and not election officials – bothered to check Barack Obama's eligibility to be president, and that status remains undocumented to this day.

It's because state and federal law did not require anyone in Congress or elsewhere to check to see if Obama was a "natural born Citizen" under the meaning of Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, according the document.

The analysis by the Congressional Research Service, a research arm of the U.S. Congress, openly admits no one in the federal government, including Congress, ever asked to see Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate. It explains no one was required to do so.

Get the free, in-depth special report on eligibility that could bring an end to Obama's presidency

Technically, the CRS is a public policy research arm of the United States Congress that is organized as a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress; the CRS works exclusively for members of Congress, congressional committees and congressional staff in an advisory capacity, answering questions.

The CRS memorandum, published and distributed to congressional offices April 3, 2009, was written to explain to senators and member of the House how they could answer constituents who were demanding to see Obama's birth certificate.

Authored by Jack Maskell, the legislative attorney in the American Law Division of the Congressional Research Service, the document was a memorandum written for the subject "Qualifications for the Office of President of the United States and Legal Challenges to the Eligibility of a Candidate"

It can be viewed and downloaded on Scribd.com.

Maskell confirmed to WND that the document is authentic.

He explained he wrote it only for distribution to congressional offices, not for public distribution, and it was not posted on any of the CRS report sites where the public might have been able to find it.

He suggested one of the congressional offices that got the report facilitated its release, and it ended up posted on the Internet.

Maskell told WND he wrote it because so many members of Congress were getting questions from constituents about the issue, and they wanted to know how to respond. It would explain why so many mailed and e-mailed responses to constituents on the issue of eligibility sound just alike.

The CRS begins the memo by stating the problem:

"Many of the inquiries have questioned why then-Senator, and now President, Obama has not had to produce an original, so-called 'long' version of a 'birth certificate' from the State of Hawaii, how federal candidates are 'vetted' for qualifications generally, and have asked for an assessment of the various allegations and claims of non-eligibility st at us."

In other words, senators and members of the House could not explain why nobody ever saw Obama's long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate, and they needed a ready answer to give angry constituents who were writing, faxing and telephoning their offices for an answer.

The second full paragraph of the CRS memo must be read in its entirety to understand fully the circumstance that allowed a candidate for whom documentation was concealed from the public to be elected and sworn in as president.

It states:

"Concerning the production or release of an original birth certificate, it should be noted that there is no federal law, regulation, rule, guideline, or requirement that a candidate for federal office produce his or her original birth certificate, or a certified copy of the record of live birth, to any official of the United States government; nor is there a requirement for federal candidates to publicly release such personal record or documentation. Furthermore, there is no specific federal agency or office that 'vets' candidates for federal office as to qualifications or eligibility prior to return."

What the CRS admits is that Obama got a pass from Congress and the federal government as a whole on his birth qualifications under Article 2, Section 1. Nobody in Congress or the federal government sought to look for Obama's certified long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate, because no law or regulation required them to look.

After the document was written, nobody in Congress could claim that Congress or anyone else in the federal government had reviewed Obama's birth certificate or determined Obama was eligible to be president. It simply did not happen.

A screen capture of the document's first page, including the key second paragraph, confirms the conclusion:

The CRS memo also admits that federal elections are administered under state law, a circumstance apparent to lawyers but sometimes complicated for others.

The relevant paragraph:

"The mechanics of elections of federal officials within the several states are administered under state law. The quadrennial presidential election, although required since 1845 to be held on the same day in each state is, in an administrative and operational sense, fifty-one separate elections in the states and the District of Columbia for presidential electors. States generally control, within the applicable constitutional parameters, the administrative issues, questions, and mechanisms of ballot placement and ballot access."

The next key point is that like federal law, neither do state laws require anyone to examine the birth qualifications of presidential candidates.

The states may have discretionary authority to question a candidate's eligibility to run for federal office, but there is no requirement in state law to do so, not when it comes to looking at birth records.

Once more, the memo makes this plain:

"In Keyes v. Bowen, the California Supreme Court discussed a suit against the secretary of state that challenged President Obama's eligibility and the California electoral votes for [the] finding that: 'Petitioners have not identified any authority requiring the secretary of state to make an inquiry into or demand detailed proof of citizenship from presidential candidates,' and thus mandamus (a writ of mandate) was not granted. However, although no 'ministerial duty' or mandatory requirement exists to support a mandamus action, there may still exist discretionary authority in such elections official."

A writ of mandamus in this case brought by Ambassador Alan Keyes would have involved a court order being issued by the secretary of state in California demanding Obama produce his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate to get his name on California's presidential ballot in 2008.

What the CRS is saying is that since there was no state law demanding Obama show his birth certificate, the court could not demand he do so. It was entirely up to the California secretary of state who had discretion to ask for the document or not ask for the document, depending upon what the California secretary of state, a Democrat for this election cycle, wanted to do.

The CRS's conclusion is that Obama could refuse to show his long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate because no state or federal law required him reveal it.

The report said, therefore, Obama could release exactly what information he chose.

"Despite the absence of any formal administrative or legal requirement or oversight at the federal level, or specific state requirement to produce a birth certificate for ballot placement, it may be noted here briefly that the only 'official' documentation or record that has been presented in the matter of President Obama's eligibility has been an official, certified copy of the record of live birth released by the Obama campaign in June of 2008, as an apparent effort by then-candidate Obama to address rumors and innuendos concerning the place of his birth."

The result is that Obama could choose exactly what information – and in what format – he wanted released. He chose the computer-generated Certification of Live Birth, a form from the state of Hawaii that officials there have provided to those not born in the state, to document his eligibility.

The CRS also makes it clear that if the birth requirements of the Constitution are to be taken seriously, new laws at the state and federal levels will be needed to institutionalize government procedures requiring president candidates to come forward with their eligibility documentation.

WND has reported on a multitude of legal and other challenges to Obama's eligibility that arose even before his election.

The claims are that Obama does not meet the U.S. Constitution's requirement that a president be a "natural born citizen." The lawsuits have asserted he either was not born in Hawaii as he claims or was a dual citizen because of his father's British citizenship at the time of his birth.

The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

However, none of the cases filed to date has been successful in reaching the plateau of legal discovery, so that information about Obama's birth could be obtained.

Besides Obama's actual birth documentation, the still-concealed documentation for him includes kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, his files from his years as an Illinois state senator, his Illinois State Bar Association records, any baptism records, and his adoption records.

Several states already have begun working on various requirements for candidates to document their eligibility, and one proposal remains pending at the federal level.

Monday, November 8, 2010

ObamaCare Repeal Gains at the Polls

by Deroy Murdock


NEW YORK — Democrats cannot spin Tuesday’s election as an anti-incumbent exercise. Rather, it was Washington, D.C.’s biggest mid-term shift in party power since 1938. At this writing, no sitting Republican senator and only two GOP House members lost re-election. Meanwhile, two Senate and 49 House Democrats — including the Armed Services, Budget, and Transportation Committee chairmen— will clear their desks and go home. (Several tight tallies could shift those numbers.) The American people gagged on government — gargantuan, profligate, and pugilistic — especially in its domestic quintessence: ObamaCare. Calls to repeal the Democrats’ wheezing contraption grew louder Tuesday.

Voters shunned the few Democrats who shouted their support for ObamaCare. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Representatives Tom Perriello of Virginia and North Dakota’s Earl Pomeroy were the only incumbent contenders who waved their ObamaCare pom-poms. Voters sacked the trio.

Conversely, Governor Joe Manchin (D – West Virginia) seemed trapped in Charleston until he said this in mid-October: ObamaCare “needs to have a lot of it repealed. If you can’t fix that, repeal the whole thing.” His numbers rose, and he won.

President Obama told journalists Wednesday, “I think we would be misreading the election if we thought the American people for the next two years want us to relitigate the arguments of the last two years.” Actually, on this issue, that is precisely what a near-majority of Americans desires.

According to national exit polls, 48 percent of voters surveyed want Congress to repeal ObamaCare. While 31 percent (supposedly fans of really-big government) want ObamaCare expanded, only 16 percent would leave it untouched. ObamaCare is an unwanted orphan — hated by the Right, unloved by the Left, and yawned at by the middle.

“Among Democrats who favored repeal, 36 percent voted for Republicans,” veteran Democrat pollster Patrick Caddell explained on Fox News Channel on Wednesday. “Among independents who favored repeal, 86 to 9 [percent] voted Republican.” Caddell added: “In my lifetime, this is the first time my party will have less than 200 seats in the House. [GOP: 239; Democrat: 186; Disputed: 10] Healthcare is a major thing….The American people found this a crime against democracy. I have been saying this since March. They wanted repeal. And this issue is going to go on and on, and he [Obama] seems absolutely tone deaf to understand this.”

Among the states, 55 percent of Arizona’s voters and 65 percent of Oklahoma’s approved propositions to quash ObamaCare’s individual mandate to possess health insurance. While 55 percent of Colorado voters spurned similar language Tuesday, 71 percent of Missouri’s electorate endorsed an anti-mandate proposal last August 3.

The GOP’s conquest of 19 previously Democrat state-representative chambers, 10 full legislatures, and 11 governorships gives state-level Republicans brand-new opportunities to hammer ObamaCare. GOP control of the most state-legislative seats since 1928 could spawn fresh anti-ObamaCare lawsuits beyond the 21 that states have filed.

After voting to repeal ObamaCare, the GOP House should convene hearings to showcase how this 2,801-page grotesque already hikes costs, boots Americans from their insurance plans, and spreads confusion among businesses. The Democratic Senate presumably would kill any such repeal bill. And President Obama likely would veto any bid to liquidate his hideous baby.

“If Senate liberals or the president block repeal, conservatives must do everything in their power to defund and delay ObamaCare’s implementation until 2012, when they can elect a conservative president and more Senate conservatives,” says Michael Needham, CEO of Heritage for America, a leading pro-repeal organization.

Oddly enough, ObamaCare has performed a worthy clinical purpose. Barely seven-months-old, this monstrosity has been a $2.5 trillion inoculation against future outbreaks of U.S. socialism. Over unanimous Republican opposition and the contrary screams of the American people, Democrats injected the electorate with the ObamaCare needle, insisting that it would ease their pain. Instead, it triggered Tuesday’s dramatic side effects. But ObamaCare seemingly has vaccinated Americans against future charlatans who soothingly promise free unicorns and rainbows that are nothing but mirrors and gases.

Mr. Murdock
, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.