Explode...?How many bloodied combat veterans do you suppose view this promised land of ours as endangered by the collective "leadership" of the Dempublicans and Republicrats?
The oligarchs are men and women of flesh and blood. Human beings can be killed. Will it someday come to that? Must it someday come to that...?
9 comments:
http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1925:taking-executive-orders-too-far&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69
The drafters of the Constitution intended the default action of government to be inaction.
This may be news to the supposed constitutional scholar who is now our president, but if the political process seems inconvenient to the implementation of his agenda, that is not a flaw in the system. It was designed that way.
* THEY USED TO TEACH THIS STUFF IN SCHOOL... BUT NOWADAYS... (*SIGH*)
If federal laws or executive actions can’t be agreed upon constitutionally - which is to say legally - such laws or actions should be rejected.
The vision of the founders was to set up a government that would remain small and unobtrusive via a system of checks and balances. That it has taken our government so long to get this big speaks well of the original design. The founders also knew the overwhelming nature of governments was to amass power and grow. The Constitution was to serve as the brakes on the freight train of government.
* IS ANY OF THIS RINGING A BELL WITH THE LURKERS...???
But the Obama administration, like so many administrations in the 20th century, chooses to ignore the Constitution... The increasingly broad use and scope of the Executive Orders is a prime example.
Executive Orders are meant to be a way for the president to direct executive agencies on the implementation of congressionally approved legislation.
* CONGRESSIONALLY... APPROVED... LEGISLATION...
It has become increasingly common for them to be misused in ways that are contradictory to congressional intent, or to bypass Congress altogether in enacting political agendas.
The current administration has unabashedly stated that Congress's unwillingness to pass the president's jobs bill means that the president will act unilaterally to enact provisions of it piecemeal through Executive Order.
* THIS IS BLATANTLY UNCONSTITUTION - A DELIBERATE VIOLATION OF HIS OATH... YET ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS TYRANNY.
Obama explicitly threatens to bypass Congress, thus aggregating the power to make and enforce laws in the executive. This clearly erodes the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. It brings the modern presidency dangerously close to an elective dictatorship.
(*NOD*)
* FOLKS... HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I EXPLAINED THIS...?!?! THIS ISN'T "CRAZY TALK" - IT'S WHAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING! FURTHERMORE, THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING MY WRITINGS FOR YEARS KNOW THAT MY VIEWS AND CRITIQUES HAVE BEEN CONSISTENT ACROSS PARTISAN ADMINSTRATIONS. IN MANY WAYS BUSH WAS A ROLE MODEL FOR OBAMA - YET AT LEAST BUSH LIMITED HIS POWER GRABS MAINLY TO FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY!
Of course, the most dangerous and costly overstepping of executive authority is going to war without a congressional declaration. Congress has been sadly complicit in this usurpation by ceding much of its war-making authority to the executive because it wants to avoid taking responsibility for major war decisions, but that is part of our job in Congress! If the President cannot present to Congress and the people a convincingly strong case for going to war, then perhaps we should keep the nation at peace, rather than risk our men and women's lives for ill-defined reasons!
This administration certainly was not the first to behave in ways that have defied the Constitution to overstep its bounds. Sadly, previous administrations have set precedents that the current administration is only building upon. It is time for Congress to reassert itself and its constitutional role so that future administrations cannot continue on this dangerous path.
* BUT THEY WON'T. THIS IS WHY I FEAR THERE'S LITTLE HOPE FOR "SAVING" AMERICA.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204554204577024402709629524.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
In 1982, two social scientists - George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson - published an article in the Atlantic in which they argued that a city window left broken is an invitation to further disorder. Their message was as simple as it was unconventional. Sweat the small stuff (graffiti, aggressive panhandling, petty crime) and you'll stop problems before they grow bigger.
In the three decades since, (certain) mayors and police chiefs across America have transformed their cities by taking the broken-window message to heart, especially in New York.
* AND CERTAIN MAYORS AND POLICE CHIEFS HAVEN'T... (*SIGH*)
Occupy Wall Street has taken a high-profile part of Manhattan and turned it into an anarchist campground worse than the Tompkins Square Park of the 1980s, when it stood for the worst of New York - encampments of the homeless and a haven for drug dealing.
The OWS protesters seem to have no fear of Michael Bloomberg...
* I WONDER WHY... (*SMIRK*) (*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
For most, the Occupy movement has been a lark. For Woodstock wannabees, it's a romantic trip back to the Vietnam War protests they weren't around for. For television cameras and leftish documentarians, it's a feast of crazy signs and even crazier behavior. For a certain kind of Democrat, it's the answer to the energy of the tea party ("We are on their side," President Obama said of the Occupy movement to ABC News just three weeks ago).
The president is by no means alone. The mayor of Oakland, Calif., Jean Quan, issued words of support for the Occupy movement that sprang up outside her City Hall, claiming that sometimes "democracy is messy." Indeed it is: According to the San Francisco Chronicle, eyewitnesses claim her husband was among those who helped close the port down last week.
* WOW... FIRST I'M HEARING OF THAT! NEWS BLACKOUT I GUESS! (SERIOUSLY, FOLKS... THE MSM HAS CEASED TO EVEN PRETEND THEY'RE NON-PARTISAN AND NON-IDEOLOGICAL.)
Ditto for Mayor Vincent Gray in the District of Columbia. On Friday a mob from Occupy DC attacked the Washington Convention Center where a conservative group was holding its meeting. The police did not protect them, and some who called for help claim 911 operators hung up.
* IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE VIDEO - THE LONG VERSION - DOCUMENTING HOW AN ELDERLY WOMAN WAS LITERALLY KNOCKED TO THE GROUND - SUFFERING INJURIES WHICH MERITED A TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL - BY THE ANIMALS THEN THAT MAKES MY POINT ABOUT THE MSM.
Earlier in the month, the D.C. government issued a press release boasting that "a fired-up Mayor Gray" had spoken in a freedom march that had "merged with separate demonstrations in support of DC voting rights and the Occupy Wall Street movement."
* FREEDOM...? (*SIGH*)... NO. MANY OF THESE PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS. AND IT'S NOT JUST A BUNCH OF NUTS. NOPE. UNION MONEY AND ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCES ARE DOCUMENTED AS BEHIND OWS. SOROS AND THE OTHER "USUAL SUSPECTS" ARE ALSO BEHIND OWS. THE YOUNG AND STUPID ARE BEING USED AS DUPES AND PAWNS.
In short, instead of seeing "broken windows," too many of our urban leaders have persuaded themselves that the drugs, sexual assault and vandalism that have accompanied the Occupy movement are all "isolated incidents." In New York, Mayor Bloomberg says that he won't tolerate the kind of violence they had in Oakland. (Of course, this is the same mayor who complains that the protesters have no right to erect tents when the whole of Zuccotti Park is blanketed with them.)
(*SIGH*)
Our progressive mayors may think themselves reasonable when they turn a blind eye to the public disorders that have characterized the Occupy movement. In fact, they are sending a signal that imperils the urban development they so profess to love. For the message they are sending to business is this: When the crazies come for you, you're on your own.
What company thinking of moving to Texas or even Connecticut, for example, will be persuaded to stay in Manhattan after witnessing the mayor's impotence here? How many trade groups or associations are going to move their big meetings from the nation's capital after they've seen the lack of police protection at the convention center? Who's going to sink money into Oakland - which clocked in below Flint, Mich., on a recent Forbes ranking of cities by job growth - when they see a mayor unwilling to call in the cops even after businesses have been openly attacked?
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203687504576655352353046120.html
Public school teachers' total compensation amounts to roughly $1.50 for every $1 that their skills could garner in a private sector job.
* AND YET...
Public school teachers receive salaries 19.3% lower than similarly-educated private workers, according to our analysis of Census Bureau data!
(*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)
How could that be?
* FOLKS... RE-READ THE TWO ABOVE SENTENCES. THEY SEEM CONTRADICTORY, DON'T THEY? THEY'RE NOT! READ ON AND THE AUTHORS WILL EXPLAIN!
The majority of public school teachers were education majors in college, and more than two in three received their highest degree (typically a master's) in an education-related field. A salary comparison that controls only for years spent in school makes no distinction between degrees in education and those in biology, mathematics, history or other demanding fields.
Education is widely regarded by researchers and college students alike as one of the easiest fields of study, and one that features substantially higher average grades than most other college majors.
On objective tests of cognitive ability such as the SAT, ACT, GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and Armed Forces Qualification Test, teachers score only around the 40th percentile of college graduates.
If we compare teachers and non-teachers with similar AFQT scores, the teacher salary penalty disappears.
* GET IT...?!?!
* BUT, WAIT...! THERE'S MORE...!
* To be continued...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
While salaries are about even, fringe benefits push teacher compensation well ahead of comparable employees in the private economy.
Data on employee benefits from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), for example, do not include retiree health coverage, which for teachers is worth about an additional 10% of their salaries. Because of differing accounting rules between the public and private sectors, BLS data also make teachers' defined-benefit pensions appear only slightly more generous than the typical 401(k) plan found in the private sector. In reality, a teacher who retired after 30 years of service with an annual salary of $40,000 might receive guaranteed annual pension benefits of about $20,330. Under a typical private 401(k) plan, a guaranteed annual benefit might be only around $4,450 (assuming the money is invested in U.S. Treasurys and the employee buys an annuity).
* ARE YOU FOLLOWING...??? (OBVIOUSLY THE "BARKERISTS" AMONG YOU ARE... I WAS DIRECTING THE RHETORICAL QUESTION TO THE LEFTIST LURKERS...) (*SMILE*)
BLS data on paid leave for teachers count vacation days only during the school year, omitting summer and long holiday breaks.
(*PAUSE*)
A valid pay comparison should include this extra time off, in which teachers can enjoy longer vacations or earn additional income.
(*THUMBS UP*)
Properly counted, a typical public school teacher with a salary of $51,000 would receive another $51,480 in present or future fringe benefits. A worker in private business with the same salary would receive around $22,185 in fringe benefits.
(*SHRUG*)
Finally, despite recent layoffs, teachers still have greater job security than workers in private businesses. While employment in education declined by 2.9% between September 2008 and July 2011, according to BLS data, overall private-sector employment declined by 4.4%. (According to our model...job security is worth about an estimated extra 9% of compensation.)
* I URGE YOU ALL TO READ THE FULL PIECE IN ORDER TO GET MORE DETAILS ON THE METHODOLOGY.
One important caveat: Our research is in terms of averages. The best public school teachers - especially those teaching difficult subjects such as math and science - may well be underpaid compared to counterparts in the private sector.
* BECAUSE THE UNIONS LARGELY REFUSE TO ALLOW PAY "DISCRIMINATION" IN FAVOR OF THE BEST AND MOST IN DEMAND TEACHERS!
Nevertheless, most public school teachers would not earn more in private employment. According to our analysis of the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation, the average person who moves into teaching receives a pay increase of almost 9%, while the average teacher who leaves for the private economy must take a pay cut of over 3%. This is the opposite of what we would expect if teachers were underpaid.
* TO REPEAT...
This is the opposite of what we would expect if teachers were underpaid.
(It also helps explain why more people seek teaching jobs - as measured through the number of teaching graduates and applications for teaching positions - than can possibly find them.)
(*SHRUG*)
In short, combining salaries, fringe benefits and job security, we have calculated that public school teachers receive around 52% more in average compensation than they could earn in the private sector.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203554104577000023072914382.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_AboveLEFTTop
[S]tudent loans from the government are available regardless of credit history or assets, so default rates are high and have been rising - to 8.8%, according to the most recent government data.
As the default rate rises on federally backed student loans, President Obama has responded with a plan to make education lending even more expensive for taxpayers.
In his first student-lending "reform," which was rushed through the Senate as part of ObamaCare, Mr. Obama added $1 trillion to the federal balance sheet over the next decade by eliminating private lenders.
* AH... BUT NOW COMES STAGE TWO...
Mr. Obama wants to accelerate an "income-based repayment" option to "forgive" more student debt and limit monthly repayments for graduates earning low salaries.
* IN OTHER WORDS, FOLKS... STICK TAXPAYERS WITH THE LOAN REPAYMENT!
[B]orrowers will not have to pay more than 10% of their "discretionary income" each year, regardless of how much they owe.
(The government defines discretionary income as the difference between the borrower's adjusted gross income and 150% of the federal poverty line.)
If the money isn't completely paid back in 20 years, the remaining debt will be "forgiven."
That's right. Wait 20 years and, presto, you're student debt-free. A student who finances an expensive education and then pursues a career with meager salaries could be sticking taxpayers with five- or even six-figure losses by year-twenty. The loan then becomes a very expensive grant.
It gets even more expensive for taxpayers when student borrowers take a "public service" job after graduation, thanks to a program that began in 2007. "Public servants" can get all of their remaining federal student-loan debt forgiven after only 10 years. This applies to government employees such as teachers and to workers at nonprofits.
(Go to Georgetown, borrow $100,000 from Uncle Sam, join the Sierra Club, wait a decade and the loan becomes a free lunch.)
The larger picture is that the President is pushing hard to turn college into one more new entitlement, regardless of cost or course of study.
Washington's rising subsidies for college are a big reason that tuition keeps rising faster than inflation. Tuition and fees increased 4.5% at private colleges last year and 8.3% at public ones, according to the College Board's latest data. Under Mr. Obama's plan, taxpayers will provide the subsidies that allow colleges to raise their prices even higher.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203658804576639071125306378.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth
Weeks after the U.S. Army turned over its base here in the Pech Valley to Afghan troops in March, the Afghan commander went AWOL.
(*HEADACHE*)
His deputy, suspected of being in cahoots with the Taliban, ordered his men not to shoot passing insurgents.
(*SIGH*)
Soon the base was alive with rumors the deputy planned to let the Taliban inside the gates.
* FOLKS... OUR GOVERNMENT - BOTH UNDER BUSH AND NOW OBAMA - HAS BEEN SQUANDERING LIVES, BLOOD, AND TREASURE ON AN UNWINABLE GAMBLE. WE CAN'T SIMPLY CREATE CIVILIZATION - PRO-WESTERN CIVILIZATION - IN AFGHANISTAN.
* ALL OUR DEAD... ALL OUR WOUNDED... ALL THE SACRAFICES MADE... (*SIGH*)... MADE FOR NOTHING. MADE FOR A LIE. MADE FOR A FOOL'S ERRAND.
It didn't take long for the Americans to return, either, dragged back into a valley they once considered a trophy and now wish they were rid of. Just four months after pulling out, U.S. Army troops re-occupied the Nangalam base, where they remain to this day.
(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)
* FOLKS... THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE SUPPORTED "THE MISSION" - SACRAFICING OTHERS' BLOOD AND LIVES OF COURSE... BORROWING MONEY FROM CHINA IN OUR CHILDRENS' AND GRANDCHILDRENS' NAMES - SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES.
President Barack Obama has ordered the 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan reduced by 10,000 by year's end.
* GOOD FOR HIM. TOO LITTLE, MUCH TOO LATE... BUT GOOD FOR HIM.
American commanders generally praise their Afghan counterparts.
* BECAUSE IN TODAY'S POLITICALLY CORRECT MILITARY TO DO ANYTHING BUT WOULD BE TO DOOM ONE'S CAREER.
(*SHRUG*)
* COM'ON, FOLKS... YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE!
[A]fter the U.S. Army turned over its base...the situation disintegrated. The Taliban descended into the valley and began cruising through town in pickup trucks mounted with heavy guns, according to soldiers. Local elders - respected men from the valley - had promised to use their influence to prevent attacks on the Afghan forces left behind. But the promise proved empty. Taliban forces moved freely along the paved river road, once the pride of the U.S. counterinsurgency campaign. They called meetings with the locals, combining threats and promises in their own hearts-and-minds effort, according to Afghan intelligence reports. Some locals overtly sympathized with the Taliban, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. The Taliban and the locals are Pashtun, while many Afghan army troops belong to the country's other ethnic groups. "There are some elders who play both sides," says Yar Pasha, head of the local youth association.
(*MORE SARCASTIC CLAPPING*)
Deprived of U.S. logistics support, the base began to run low on supplies. The troops bought rice, flour and other food on credit from local merchants. Ammunition was diverted to those on the guard towers or going on food runs to the market. The Afghan troops trashed much of the base, stripping wiring, plumbing and air-conditioning units. Well pumps stopped working, according to a U.S. officer. One generator turned up at Torkham Gate, the border crossing into Pakistan, but was nabbed by customs agents, according to an Afghan officer. Several rooms were littered with feces, say U.S. soldiers who saw the base later.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/military-widows-forced-to-remarry-to-get-benefits-2011-11-08
On the morning of Sept. 6, 2010, Vivianne Wersel made breakfast for her two teenage kids as they wished her a happy 57th birthday.
“It was just another day for me,” Wersel says now. “Nothing special, no special Entenmanns pastry for breakfast.” Those pastries were a tradition Wersel had once shared with her husband Rich, an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, who died of a service-related heart attack in 2005 at the age of 43 - just a week after he returned from his second tour of duty in Iraq.
Since her husband’s death six years ago, Wersel has been receiving Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) benefits from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. This is compensation or reparation to widows and widowers for the death of their military spouse. Most surviving spouses receive $1,154 a month.
But when she turned 57 in September 2010, Wersel became eligible for another monthly benefit under one condition: she must remarry.
Military widows and widowers can receive an additional monthly annuity through the Department of Defense called the Survivors Benefit Plan (SBP), but - because of a perplexing and logic-defying federal law known as “the widow’s tax” - only if they remarry after the age of 57.
This is despite the fact that military couples have voluntarily paid significant premiums for their SBP policies, which are annuities that are triggered when a military spouse dies. The SBP benefit does not require a service-related death.
If a surviving spouse is eligible for DIC benefits because of a service-related death and they do not remarry or if they remarry before the age of 57, they do not get their Survivor Benefit Plan annuity paid in full. Instead, the Defense Department refunds the premiums and then offsets the SBP benefit dollar for dollar against the VA-paid DIC benefit.
This leaves most spouses with little or no SBP benefit except for the fortuitous few who happen to remarry after the age of 57. Even that small cohort must first pay back a portion of the refunded premiums to activate their SBP benefit. (To complicate this further, if the surviving spouse remarries between the ages of 55 and 57, they receive their SBP annuity but lose their DIC benefit from the VA.)
Meanwhile, if the surviving spouse happens to fall in love and remarries before the age of 55, they lose both types of benefits and receive nothing.
* FOLKS... READ THE FULL ARTICLE. THIS IS OUR GOVERNMENT IN ACTION!
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/282575/hobbyist-photographer-describes-assault-zuccotti-park-charles-c-w-cooke
Bruce Fancher, a hobbyist photographer who lives “a few blocks” from the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Lower Manhattan...ventured into Zuccotti Park on Sunday with a camera and took a few pictures.
For his trouble he was “punched in the face by one of the lovely young idealists.”
Bruce was taking photographs of tents when a man approached him and told to him to “have some respect.”
He calmly explained that it was a public park and he had every right to be there.
Before he knew it, his camera had been smacked out of his hands, and his face had been punched. Bleeding fairly heavily from his nose, he went and described the assault to one of the many policeman in the square. An ambulance was called, and arrived almost immediately. When she was finished, the EMT told him that it was the “fourteenth assault” to which she had personally been called.
The professionalism of the first responders stopped there, however.
* IN BLOOMBERG'S NEW YORK... (*SIGH*)... I'M NOT SURPRISED.
When Fancher described the attack to the reporting cop, the reaction was “indifference. I may as well have told him that it was going to rain tomorrow.”
The NYPD officer steadfastly refused to go back into the park, suggesting that to do so would “cause a riot.” As a result, the assailant, described as “light, about 28 years old, muscular, short hair, and well dressed,” got away unpunished.
Fancher received little sympathy from the OWS crowd either. Amazingly, “no one saw anything,” and no help was proffered. Perhaps “love for all” doesn’t apply as universally as advertised in the commune.
* WE HAVE A FRIGG'N PROBLEM, FOLKS... THE INMATES (LEFTIST POLITICIANS) ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM.
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