Choosing The Right Lane To Follow

In pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, free markets and individual liberty

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"...I wish I wish I could impose my will on Congress....."

Today, President Obama spoke in Burma – or as he termed it, Myanmar, despite official US practice to call the country Burma – and repeatedly botched the name of the country’s famed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, instead calling her Aung YAN Suu Kyi. Then he called President Thein Sein “President Sein,” which was a diplomatic snafu, since the president of Burma is to be called by his full name. His speech was just as bad. After getting through the basics – acting as though his doctrine, not President Bush’s multiple actions on behalf of democracy in Burma, had created more freedom in Burma — Obama cited Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “four fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.” When it came to freedom of speech, Obama said all the right things – after all, he was not talking about an anti-Islam YouTube video in Burma. But he then followed up that glowing language with this bombshell: “Now, on other hand, as President, I cannot just impose my will on Congress — the Congress of the United States — even though sometimes I wish I could.” Yes, he does. And he does everything in his power to exceed his constitutional bounds. And he said this in Burma, a military dictatorship for decades, shortly after calling it Myanmar, the name for the country used by the military dictatorship. Talk about undermining America on the world stage.

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Paul Krugman Says It’s OK for Governments to Steal
Paul Krugman, a regular commentator for The New York Times, wants to return to the good old days of high tax rates. He’s trying to make the case that high tax rates on the nation’s wealthiest income earners was good for the economy in the 1950s:

“[I]n the 1950s incomes in the top bracket faced a marginal tax rate of 91, that’s right, 91 percent, while taxes on corporate profits were twice as large, relative to national income, as in recent years. The best estimates suggest that circa 1960 the top 0.01 percent of Americans paid an effective federal tax rate of more than 70 percent, twice what they pay today.”

It’s too bad that conservatives don’t know how to argue their case for lower taxes. Krugman also misses the real reason why all people should be opposed to high or even medium taxes on anybody. By what authority do elected representatives have the right to tax some people at a higher rate than other people? Is it because a majority of people want to (1) punish high income earners because of envy or (2) is it because they want some of what prosperous people earn by way of wealth transfer? Either way, the rationale and practice are immoral. t’s irrelevant what the tax rate was in the 1950s as compared to today. The more pressing question is the taxing power of the State. A few hundred people and a cadre of judges determine how much money you and I get to keep. This is not the system of government that our elected officials took an oath to uphold. None of the new revenue raised by taxing the rich at ever higher levels will be used to reduce any debt. It will be spent on more government programs because that’s how Democrats get elected.

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Lindsey Graham: White House Neglected Ambassador's Security, Manipulated Facts of Death By Amy Woods

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday accused the White House of purposefully manipulating the “political narrative” of the terrorist attack in Benghazi to make President Obama look good two months before the election. Graham, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, the official who first addressed the issue publicly, had no business speaking about it but was chosen because Rice was “politically compliant.” “Why would you choose someone who had nothing to do with Benghazi to tell us about Benghazi?” he asked. “That’s kind of odd. She was the most politically compliant person they could find. I don’t know what she knew, but I know that the story she told was misleading.” Graham said he believes the administration would — and did — mislead Americans on the issue of national security “to prevent him [Obama] from looking bad.”

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Obama Held First Meeting After Election With Socialists & Communists by Leon Puissegur

Will anyone question just why Barack Obama met with Richard Trumka and the Progressive Caucus? Why is it that he met with them first rather than meeting with the congressional delegation? We as a nation should ask these questions because behind closed doors many things can be said that have very dangerous impacts upon our national standings. Why did Obama decide to meet with these particular groups? First we must find out just what does Richard Trumka and the Progressive Caucus have to bring into any discussion with the President of the United States. Richard Trumka, the head of most unions in the United States, was the man called to the White House to meet with President Obama to find out what he and the Progressive caucus think of the upcoming fiscal program created by an ineffective Congress. This man has close ties to socialistic ideology and it dates back to 1994.

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If God Doesn’t Judge Us, He’ll Have to Apologize to Sodom By Doug Giles

I have to admit that when Obama “won” re-election I became more depressed than Madonna’s audience was when they were forced to watch her strip the other night. For God’s sake, Madonna, put some material on that mess, material girl. I guess she’s going to follow Cher’s path and torture us with her exhibitionism ‘til she takes the big dirt nap. Like a virgin? Yeah … right. More like a sturgeon. Hang it up, Madge … you’re scaring the children. Anyway, back to my post-election depression. As I was saying, giddy I was not that Obama secured a second term via Fieldworks, entitlement mooks and the sponge-brained propaganda swillers of the ludicrous Left … but he did. And for that I must concede that if there is a God and this God is defined by the contents of the sacred Scripture, then this God must be really ticked off at the U.S. because He allowed, in His sovereignty, for us to be saddled with four more years of an administration that blows worse than Hurricane Sandy. Yep, for those who take their cue from the Bible, you must have noticed that anytime God wanted to wake His wayward nation the heck up because they were belligerently ignoring His statutes, He usually appointed a crappy leader who brought their nation down to Chinatown through bad dictates. Sure, God sometimes plagued His contumacious people with frogs or hemorrhoids or let enemy nations batter them unmercifully, but on many occasions He simply let them be governed by a daft king, some Moronosaurus Rex who ignored God’s ways and led Israel into a moral and economic ditch. That’s right. You heard me. God allowed it to happen. Not El Diablo, but God. Personally, I don’t know why God hasn’t whooshed us completely off the map by now. I do know that if He doesn’t kick our backside for us showing Him our backside that—forgive me Lord—He owes Sodom and Gomorrah a big apology.

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Russian plans new ICBM for 2014

MOSCOW, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- A military source in the Kremlin said Wednesday the Russian military aims to deploy its latest intercontinental ballistic missile by 2014.

Russia test-fired a prototype ICBM in October. A military source told state-run news agency RIA Novosti the final version would enter service in 2014.

"According to the latest information, it will be accepted into service in 2014; the new weapon is part of a response program to the United States ballistic missile defense program," the source said.

Military commanders had said any new ICBM system wouldn't be ready until 2015. The missile would have a range of 3,500 miles and be deployed on mobile launch pads.

The U.S. and Russian governments have agreed on measures meant to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in their respective arsenals. Missile defense issues, particularly those in Eastern Europe, have been a source of contention on both sides. Moscow says it wants legal guarantees that any missile system planned for Europe won't target Russian defense systems. Washington maintains, however, that the system is meant as a deterrent to Iran and North Korea. The Kremlin has said it was optimistic that U.S. President Barack Obama would offer more leeway on missile defense concerns in Europe during his second term.  Yes, remember he said he would have more "flexibility" in his second term?

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The Millionaires Who Pay the Highest Tax Rate

Warren Buffett and Mitt Romney have managed to create one of the enduring myths of our tax debate: that the rich pay a lower rate than the rest of America. This may be individually true. Buffett pays a lower rate than his secretary and Romney pays a lower rate than most of us who make our living from salaries. But nationally, the tax code is still broadly progressive. The more your make, the more taxes you pay as a percentage of your income. According to new data from the IRS, people who make $1 million or more had an average tax rate of 20.4 percent in 2010. Tax filers who earned $30,000 to $50,000 paid an average rate of 4.8 percent, while those who made between $50,000 and $100,000 paid 7.7 percent. Those making under $30,000 had a negative effective rate, meaning they paid no federal income taxes after deductions and credits.           Put another way, millionaires pay a rate that’s more than four times that of the middle class.

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A checklist to see whether debt reduction is real

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and leaders of the lame-duck Congress may be just weeks away from shaking hands on a deal to avert the dreaded "fiscal cliff." So it's natural to wonder: If they announce a bipartisan package promising to curb mushrooming federal deficits, will it be real? Both sides have struck cooperative tones since Obama's re-election. Even so, he and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, the GOP's pivotal bargainer, have spent most of the past two years in an acrid political climate in which both sides have fought stubbornly to protect their constituencies. Obama and top lawmakers could produce an agreement that takes a serious bite out of the government's growing $16 trillion pile of debt and puts it on a true downward trajectory. Or they might reach an accord heading off massive tax increases and spending cuts that begin to bite in January — that's the fiscal cliff — while appearing to be getting tough on deficits through painful savings deferred until years from now, when their successors might revoke or dilute them. Historically, Congress and presidents have proven themselves capable of either. So before bargainers concoct a product, and assuming they can, here's a checklist of how to assess their work: Read Here

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If Not You, Then Who?

If you, family and friends gave thanks this Thursday for the wonderful free country we live in as you watched in horror what is going on in the Middle East you are amongst many.  However, there are many fellow Americans, that treated it as a day off to eat and plan their shopping for Black Friday.  If you are still depressed over the election and left wondering how people could vote the way they did, ask yourself the question; what can I do for the country I love.  I would challenge you to be vocal and speak out in order to "teach" others what you already know.  Many suspicion that if "they" only understood what we know, the electorate would vote differently.  It starts with what your children are taught or not taught in public schools.  Unless you have been asleep the last number of years, you know what is NOT being taught in schools.  And now, many of these government schooled children and grown up and are voting.  So, what are you going to do?  If not you, then who?

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4th Straight Year Obama’s Thanksgiving Message Doesn’t Thank God

Yet again, President Obama’s Thanksgiving message eschewed any direct reference to thanking God, making this the fourth straight year in which the President of the United States has ignored the central message of the holiday in favor of political grandstanding.  This year, Obama’s central message was that now that he’s been re-elected, Americans should agree with all of his policies. His unity routine sounds strangely empty after a campaign in which he focused on dividing Americans:

"But most of all, it’s a time to give thanks for each other, and for the incredible bounty we enjoy. That’s especially important this year.  As a nation, we’ve just emerged from a campaign season that was passionate, noisy, and vital to our democracy.  But it also required us to make choices – and sometimes those choices led us to focus on what sets us apart instead of what ties us together; on what candidate we support instead of what country we belong to ….We’re also grateful that this country has always been home to Americans who see these blessings not simply as gifts to enjoy, but as opportunities to give back.  Americans who believe we have a responsibility to look out for those less fortunate – to pull each other up and move forward together."

How are we supposed to move forward together, you ask? Why, with greater government spending, of course!

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Abraham Lincoln

The problem is that their solution describes a second French Revolution to combat the Obama prescribed October Revolution. A second American Revolution, not grounded in morality, will not lead to peace and prosperity, but to the guillotine or the gulag. We cannot afford to forsake God in this dark hour. We would be wise to consider the words of the Republican’s first President, who seeing his nation in a similar straight, called for a day of fasting and reflection - And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

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Liberals Love the ‘General Welfare’ Clause by Gary DeMar

A  commentator made the absurd claim that the United States Constitution was designed to promote wealth distribution. It’s no wonder that more than 50 percent of voters supported the most socialistic president in United States history. Here’s what he wrote:

“The Constitution, which we all revere, explicitly states that Congress has the power to levy taxes to provide for the common welfare — to include roads, bridges etc. The common welfare includes ALL people. To argue that taxes are all inherently stealing from you is to deny the very Constitution that is the foundation of the United States. I don’t agree with everything Prof. Krugman says but in this case he is right. We have the largest wealth inequality since the 1920′s and that did in fact hasten the collapse of the markets and the advent of the Great Depression. We cannot hide our heads in the sand and pretend history is unimportant.”

Since the income tax amendment wasn’t ratified until 1913, it’s hard to make the case that our founders were pushing ways to abolish “wealth inequality” since there was no instrument to tax people unequally.

Here’s the introductory text of the “general welfare” provision in Art. I, sec. 8 of the Constitution:

“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It’s clear that the “general welfare” (not “common welfare”) clause is not about wealth redistribution. There are 18 powers granted to the Federal government in the full context of Article 1, section 8 with no mention of wealth redistribution, education, retirement security, or health care.  As James Madison made clear in Federalist 41, the phrase “general welfare” is immediately followed “and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon.” He went on to state that “[n]othing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars,” which the Constitution does.[1] Read the list for yourself. “General welfare” in constitutional terms means welfare that benefits everybody more or less equally. This can be clearly seen in providing “for the common Defense.” Taxes collected to defend the nation benefit everybody generally. Taxing some people so other people can have decent housing or a college education or healthcare is not general welfare; it’s particular welfare. Taking money from some people so it can be given to other people is not what the constitution means by general welfare. Bridges and roads are paid for by people who use them. The more you drive, the more you pay. If you don’t own a car, you pay the tax indirectly in the goods that travel over the roads by trucks that purchase fuel and pay the tax, an expense that’s passed on to consumers, as is every other tax.

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Top Ten Liberal Absurdities

1.     Only in America could liberals talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event.

2.     Only in America could liberals claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly an 18% black federal workforce when only 12% of the population is black.

3.     Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.

4.     Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.

5.     Only in America would liberals make people who legally want to become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while they push for legislation that would let anyone who enters the country illegally to become American citizens by the stroke of the President’s pen.

6.     Only in America could liberals believe that balancing the budget and sticking to the Constitution could be thought to be “extremism.”

7.     Only in America do liberals believe that you need to present a driver’s license to cash a check and enter the Democratic National Convention but not to vote.

8.     Only in America could liberals demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas goes up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of what a company makes producing running shoes (Nike).

9.     Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more than it has per year for total spending of $7 million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn’t have nearly enough money.

10. Only in America could the people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their “fair share” by people who don’t pay any income taxes at all.

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America’s Early Experiment in Failed Socialism Has Been Forgotten (or Purposely Ignored) by Jerry Bowyer

It’s wrong to say that American was founded by capitalists. In fact, America was founded by socialists who had the humility to learn from their initial mistakes and embrace freedom. One of the earliest and arguably most historically significant North American colonies was Plymouth Colony, founded in 1620 in what is now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. The original colony had written into its charter a system of communal property and labor. As William Bradford recorded in his Of Plymouth Plantation, a people who had formerly been known for their virtue and hard work became lazy and unproductive. Resources were squandered, vegetables were allowed to rot on the ground and mass starvation was the result. And where there is starvation, there is plague. After 2 1/2 years, the leaders of the colony decided to abandon their socialist mandate and create a system which honored private property. The colony survived and thrived and the abundance which resulted was what was celebrated at that iconic Thanksgiving feast.

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Obama Administration to Go After Retirement Accounts by Gary DeMar

There were always warnings, however, that you can trust the communists . . . to be communists. In fact, there was a book by that title written by Fred Schwarz in 1960: You Can Trust the Communists (to be Communists) when it came to their allies, intellectual dishonesty, education, children and literature, brainwashing and language, the manipulation of truth, relativism, and the use of the term “peace.” Communists were always going to be communists no matter how much wishful thinking hoped to believe otherwise.In a similar way, you can trust liberals to always be liberals or progressives. They will always push taxing and spending policies. We’re seeing more of the consistency of liberals in their call from removing the debt ceiling and the daily insistence that taxes must be raised in the rich so they can pay their “fair share,” a plank, by the way, that’s taken right out of the Communist Manifesto.But there’s only so much money that can be squeezed out of the wealthy. The money has to come from somewhere to fund the liberal version of Utopia. Inflation, increasing the money supply via the printing press, can do long-term damage to the economy. When liberals agreed to set up retirement accounts where taxation could be postponed, a lot of people were skeptical. Why would any liberal agree to such a thing? Now we’re beginning to hear rumblings about the possibility that the Obama administration is looking at the trillions of dollars of potential revenue in these accounts as Jeff Berwick is warning us:

“[T]he National Seniors Council has announced that ‘Obama (has) Begun to Push for a New National(ized) Retirement System.’ According to them, a recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRAs and 401k plans.”

Who will object to such a takeover? Certainly the people who have money in these accounts, but not the people who don’t. The appeal will be made to the 51 percent who voted for Obama. “Why should the wealthy have what you can’t afford to participate in?,” promoters of the takeover will argue. Retirement funds will be in the same category as Social Security, collected and managed by the State. Is there historical precedent for this type of statist action?

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"The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it." --James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1824