The Right Lane 1.02.13

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

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington

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Obama Scuttles ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Deal?

Yesterday afternoon, in one of the more bizarre appearances of his presidency, Barack Obama gave a televised address to a room full of supporters on the “fiscal cliff.” He broke no news, but mocked Congress, and hinted at future tax hikes. Observers worried that he may have deliberately scuttled a potential agreement. Even though he has come off his last campaign for political office, President Obama acted like a candidate on the campaign trail–one prepared to use whatever political capital he had accumulated to take shots at the opposition in Congress at the very moment leaders from both sides are trying to work together. Less a President, Obama behaved more like an ESPN talking-head making fun of RG III’s knee injury.  Obama’s address was held basically to announce that some other people are working on solving the “fiscal cliff” crisis. [he was not?] They are close, Obama reported, but they aren’t quite there yet. He then proceeded to make some jokes about Congress, to warm applause from his selected audience. Smug doesn’t come close to capturing the true nature of his tone. [deal struck early a.m. Jan. 1]

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Fiscal Cliff Deal: $1 in Spending Cuts for Every $41 in Tax Increases

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts. When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts—cuts that never ultimately came—they did so at ratios of 3:1 and 2:1. “In 1982, President Reagan was promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes,” Americans for Tax Reform says of those two incidents. “The tax hikes went through, but the spending cuts did not materialize. President Reagan later said that signing onto this deal was the biggest mistake of his presidency.

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Many Republicans are eager for spending fight and believe it’ll put them back on offense

The United States will avoid the “fiscal cliff” if the House quickly passes the Senate’s budget deal, but the deal sets up a massive spending showdown in just a matter of weeks. Many Republicans are eager for the fight and believe once they are no longer seen as protecting millionaires, it will put them back on offense. “We’ve taken care of the revenue side of this debate. Now it’s time to get serious about reducing Washington’s out-of-control spending. That’s a debate the American people want. It’s the debate we’ll have next. And it’s a debate Republicans are ready for,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said early Tuesday. Most importantly, the deal does not raise the nation’s $16.4 trillion debt limit. On Monday, the U.S. hit that limit and began taking extraordinary measures to prevent a default on government payment obligations.

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“Oh Lord, Give us Men with a Mandate Higher than the Ballot Box”  David L. Goetsch

The title of this column is a quote from Ezra Benson, a member of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first cabinet.  It is an apt quote at a time when politicians on both sides of the aisle are running America into the ground for the sake of maintaining their seats in Congress and the perquisites that go with those seats.  If America ever needed good stewards instead of self-serving politicians, the time is now.  Unfortunately, strong leaders who stand on principle and are willing to do what is best for America regardless of how it might affect their next election are hard to find in Washington, D.C. these days. I fully understand that elected officials who love their jobs more than their country have always been with us, but it seems to me we have more of them now than ever.  This is unfortunate because there has never been a time when America needed strong and principled leaders in government more than now. Instead, too many of those “serving” in Congress seem to be serving only themselves.  Too many members of Congress are self-serving opportunists more concerned about the perquisites of their positions than the good of the country—men and women who base their beliefs on the results of opinion polls rather than enduring principles.  This, more than any other factor, is why America’s standing in the world is declining, the economy is sputtering along on three cylinders, behaviors that were considered immoral to our grandparents are now considered normal and acceptable, and Barack Obama has been able to get away with adopting policies that are destructive to America’s best interests and future.  Unfortunately, we cannot vaccinate newly-elected members of Congress against Potomac Fever. Experience has shown over and over that self-interest eventually trumps stewardship in even the most idealistic members of Congress.  Therefore, since we cannot change human nature, the best solution that suggests itself is term limits for Congressmen and Senators.  Eighteen states and hundreds of counties have already established term limits for elected officials at those levels. In fact, men, women, blacks, whites, Republicans, and Democrats favor terms limits by majorities of 60 percent or higher. Writing for The Heritage Foundation, Dan Greenberg had this to say about term limits for Congress: “Term limits are a vital political reform that would bring new perspectives to Congress, mandate frequent legislative turnover, and diminish the incentives for wasteful election-related-federal spending that currently flourish in a careerist congressional culture.”  Greenberg goes on to list the following potential benefits of congressional term limits:

• Counterbalance the many advantages of incumbents.
• Secure independent judgment on the part of members of Congress.
• Provide a much-needed reality check.
• Minimize the incentives to members of Congress to engage in “pork-barrel” legislation.
• Restore respect for Congress.

Conservatives might want to consider how the current fiscal-cllff drama being acted out in Congress would be different if term limits were in place: 1) There would be no long-serving incumbents in Congress who could use coercion to pressure the newer members to vote against their principles, 2) Members of Congress would be more inclined to do what is best for the country than what is best for their next election, and 3) Members of Congress would be less dependent on the President, their political party, and senior members of Congress for their political futures.  Hence they would be under less pressure to act or vote in ways that violate their principles.  In other words, they would be more free to do what is good for America, which, after all, is what we elect them to do.

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Benghazi report details big changes in talking points Senate panel cites intelligence agencies’ editing  By Larry Margasak, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies — but not the White House — made major changes in talking points that led to the Obama administration’s confusing explanations of the attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, a Senate report concluded Monday.  The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report said the White House was only responsible for a minor change. The committee, headed by independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, also said the director of national intelligence has been stonewalling the panel in holding back a promised timeline of the talking point changes. U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11 attack. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said she used the talking points to say in television interviews on Sept. 16 that it may have been a protest that got out of hand. The report said that on Sept. 19, eight days after the attack, National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen told the Homeland committee that the four Americans died “in the course of a terrorist attack.” Olsen’s acknowledgement was important, the report said, because talking points prepared by intelligence officials the previous week had undergone major changes:

» A line saying “we know” that individuals associated with al-Qaida or its affiliates participated in the attacks was changed to say, “There are indications that extremists participated.” That change was requested by the FBI.
» The talking points dropped the reference to al-Qaida and its affiliates altogether. In addition, a reference to “attacks” was changed to “demonstrations.”

The committee said the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and representatives from the CIA, State Department, counterintelligence center and the FBI told the panel that the changes were made within the CIA and the intelligence community. The report said the only White House change substituted a reference of “consulate” to “mission.” [but they knew the truth]

The committee said Clapper offered to provide the committee a detailed timeline on the development of the talking points. Despite repeated requests, the committee said the information has not been provided. “According to a senior IC (intelligence community) official, the timeline has not been delivered as promised because the administration has spent weeks debating internally whether or not it should turn over information considered ‘deliberative’ to the Congress,” the report said. [ why? you should be asking] The report added that if the administration had described the attack as a terrorist assault from the outset, “there would have been much less confusion and division in the public response to what happened there on Sept. 11, 2012.” “The unnecessary confusion… should have ended much earlier than it did,” the committee said.

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Dianne Feinstein Says Her Goal is to Disarm All Americans

Dianne Feinstein: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States, for an outright ban, picking up [every gun]… Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s ultimate plan has always been to have Mr. and Mrs. America turn in their guns to the government, period. Feinstein has admitted that the bill is about gun confiscation. She tells us a gun ban is about saving the children and reducing crime, but her comments on 60 Minutes in 1995 reveal her true plan is to disarm the American people. On Thursday, Feinstein will introduced her dream bill to disarm the American people. The legislation is open-ended and includes provisions to re-register firearms and submit the fingerprints of law-abiding Americans as if they’re sex offenders. Feinstein’s bill will also include a buy-back provision that will allow the government to confiscate all firearms. Both Feinstein and New York governor Andrew Cuomo have said that is their plan. It is a gun confiscation bill.

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Seeing Effects of Guns Firsthand

By Dr. Philip Theodosopoulos is an associate professor and program director of neurosurgery at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
A few sleepless nights for the cursed of our most recent tragedy and we all find ourselves numb with the terror of losing that which we cannot get back: precious, young life. In my time in neurosurgery, I have seen much abruptness in loss. No matter how many families I have counseled for a lost child, I have no better insight for how one copes with what should never be. Much like any other trauma surgeon, my nights have been peppered over the years by the acts of violence we have all become so callous to. Many of them never even make it to the next day’s paper. It is with the extraordinary occurrence that assaults our more sensitive core, making international headlines, that we revert to the beaten path of discussing guns, who and what and how many, and on and on. I have no answers for those questions. What I have come to know is how similar we all are when faced with the horror of losing a child. At trying times like this I don’t ask folks’ opinions on gun laws and they never volunteer them. You learn early in this job to suspend your own judgments of others.

It is hard to describe the atrocity of gun-inflicted wounds. The horror somehow gets diluted in the words. It is only when seen in real life that an indelible mark is left on the soul. Especially true in the gruesomeness of the injury caused by a military bullet, designed to kill someone half a mile away, when used in urban settings with power to cut a human body in half and then more. No matter one’s opinion on gun laws, there is no question in my mind that first-hand witnessing of such destruction raises unanswered questions even in the most calloused person amongst us. There should come time when we have an adult conversation about guns. I don’t know what laws are appropriate, but I know that when confronted with the real terror of gun-induced violence we all touch the same humanity we share.  As I hug my children tonight, I still hold onto the innocence of any parent that gun violence is out there but affecting others. As a surgeon I know how untrue this is. Having pronounced many young ones beyond the last measure of help we can offer, and having helped heal a few abruptly broken lives, I know that we have to do better, that we can be better. We all need to suspend our own judgment and beliefs and face this for what it is. Bullets are not clicks of a mouse in a video game, and the popping sounds they make are not generated by the audio board of a computer. Anyone who has witnessed first-hand their human toll and brutality in war theaters and our urban settings alike takes pause at pronouncing they know the one right solution. Maybe at this time of immense grief we can all pause and put our prejudices and opinions on hold for a while and become a bit more thoughtful. It is the least we can all do as adults when children are lost under our watch.

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Seeking to Bypass Congress, Obama Wants Sole Authority Over National Security

In an attempt to seize total control over national security and bypass congress, a frightening new step by the Obama Administration is coming into play. As noted in Friday’s Wall Street Journal in an op-ed by John Bolton and John Woo, a State Department advisory group that is run by former Secretary of Defense William Perry is advising that the U.S. and Russia both reduce nuclear weapons without a treaty, as a treaty would require ratification by Congress. This would allow Obama and his executive branch to unilaterally cut our nuclear weaponry and ignore the treaty clause of the Constitution. As Bolton and Woo point out, the US has a greater global responsibility than Russia; Iran and North Korea, neither of which is far from Russian interests, can only be countered by U.S. military strength. In addition, they note that Russia is not a trustworthy partner in weapons reduction; it has violated many arms-control agreements, such as the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.

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Constitutional Law Professor: Get Rid of the Constitution! by Philip Hodges

Barack Obama and Louis Michael Seidman have a few things in common:  they are both “progressive” leftists; they were both Constitutional Law professors; and they both want to get rid of the US Constitution. The difference is, the President probably wouldn’t just come out and admit it, but his actions indicate that he wants nothing more than to just scrap the entire document and declare himself dictator. Seidman on the other hand wrote an op-ed in the New York Times with the headline, “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution.” His article makes the ridiculous claim that the reason our country and government are in such disarray is not because our elected leaders completely ignore the Constitution, but precisely because they’ve been abiding by it for so long. No, he’s not joking, and as for his mental status, one can only imagine. He stated that our problems are rooted in “our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.” He mocked the idea of original intent and compared it to this hypothetical situation:

 “Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?”

 It’s the “particular course of action that is best for the county” that is frightening. Seidman wants all of us “Constitution nuts” to let the president be free to make these decisions for us as long as he thinks it’s “best for the country.” So if Chairman Obama decides that it’s best for the country to disarm all law-abiding citizens, there should be no Congressional opposition, no references to the 2^nd Amendment, no federal lawsuits, no petitions and certainly no resurrections of the writings of the founding fathers. After all, the founding fathers didn’t know anything about fighting off a tyrannical government. And besides, they owned slaves. Seidman decries slavery, but at the same time wants to rid America of its rule of law and yield all power and authority to the whims and fancies of a dictator who promises he’ll only make decisions that are for the “good of the country.” So, what if slavery was instituted at the hands of a dictator who claimed it was for the “common good?” Without the Constitution, what entity or checks and balances would be in place to challenge the institution? In fact, the dictator might just believe that it would be best for the country if all those opposed to him be either imprisoned or just eliminated. While Seidman claims to be opposed to slavery, he seems perfectly happy with Obama enslaving an entire nation under socialism. The Constitution was designed to prevent a dictatorship. No wonder Obama and Seidman don’t like it. It’s too restrictive. The various checks and balances and layers of government were there to make it impossible (or nearly impossible) for one person to call the shots and overrule everybody else. We’re a Republic “if we can keep it,” said Ben Franklin, and we’re not doing a good job keeping it. Only a moral society can take the Constitution seriously. And since we’re not a moral society anymore, the politicians we elect don’t care about the Constitution, and people like Seidman are calling for it to be abolished.

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Not Ashamed of America’s Gun Culture By R.G. Yoho  Contributor

The other day in our local newspaper, there were three political columns on the editorial page, all three of them one-sidedly calling for gun control and moaning about America’s “Gun Culture.” As a law-abiding gun owner, I must say that I am a part of America’s gun culture. I am proud of it. In addition, I often thank God for it. During World War II, the most brutal fighting experienced by our military were the battles waged against the Japanese Imperial Army. Moreover, the inhumane conditions faced by our captured American POWs and the atrocities visited upon them by their Japanese captors was like nothing faced by most of those in German prison camps. On Iwo Jima, over 7,000 American soldiers were killed, some of them forced to engage in hand-to-hand combat. About that same number of Americans lost their life at Guadalcanal. Therefore, one can only wonder how many Americans — civilians and military alike — would have died had the Japanese chosen to invade the mainland of the United States. Japanese General Yamamoto said, “You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” Their decision not to invade the United States was a direct result of what they believed to be America’s “gun culture.” Therefore, you should thank God for it too. During that same time, the Japanese invaded China, a nation without a gun culture.  In Nanking, the Japanese killed over 250,000 civilians. Soldiers deliberately raped women in front of their husbands. They forced fathers to rape their own daughters. They forced sons to rape their mothers. Moreover, they killed any family member who tried to intervene. The Japanese soldiers impaled infants on their bayonets, tossing them back and forth, spearing their bleeding, lifeless, tiny bodies on their guns like it was a game. And had Yamamoto chosen to invade our mainland, then you would have seen the same nearly-unspeakable atrocities occurring right in the streets of America. You should thank God for our gun culture. Nearly every nation that practiced gun control has eventually seen their citizens wiped out in acts of mass murder or genocide. The same thing would happen here as well. As a Western author, some would say I write stories that glorify America’s gun culture. As a gun owner and hunter, I proudly exercise my right to engage in America’s gun culture. As an American who respects the Constitution our Founders penned for us, I also celebrate our gun culture. America’s gun culture, I praise it; I enjoy it. I honor it. I celebrate it. I am proud of it. I write stories about it. I often spend my leisure hours participating in it. I fill my freezer and my belly with it. America’s gun culture, I believe God instituted it, our Founders gave everything to establish it, and our military often died to protect it. I believe in America’s gun culture. So should you!

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CDC Top 15 Causes of Death:

     1.     Heart Disease

     2.     Cancer

     3.     Stroke

     4.     Chronic Lung Disease

     5.     Accidents

     6.     Alzheimer's

     7.     Diabetes

     8.     Influenza and Pneumonia

     9.     Nephritis/Kidney Disease

    10. Blood Poisoning

    11. Suicide

    12. Liver Disease

    13. Hypertension/Renal

    14. Parkinson's Disease

Homicide did not make the list. If the left is going to start at the bottom and work up, what will they want to ban and or behavior to control next?  Check the list above and let your imagination run wild!  It is scary!!!  We could easily find ourselves on a government mandated diet with diet police "delivering" accepted foods while inspecting our homes for "contraband food".  That would help take care of #'s 1, 3,4, 7, 12, 13.  Then, have the anti-death police make rules about #'s 5 and 11.

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Brilliant! Rand Paul: “There’s No Objective Evidence that Washington is Good with Money…”

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky gave a stem-winder of a speech on the Senate floor just ahead of the potential agreement to avoid the “fiscal cliff.” When CNN singled out the supposed tea party extremist and characterized his speech as “harsh words,” one could guess his speech was a must-listen. Watch

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Deficit 'fiscal cliff' bill actually spends $330 billion more By Stephen Dinan

The "fiscal cliff" deal that was designed to save money actually includes $330.3 billion in new spending over the next decade, according to the official estimate the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday afternoon.

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