Progressives and the Courts

In a recent exchange on Twitter, the discussion had turned to Congressional Progressives and I didn’t get the feeling that there is a true appreciation of how dangerous these people really are. There are really only two things standing between Progressives and the realization of their goals. No, it is not the Tea Party movement but they have added a critical component and it is not Congressional Conservatives and Moderates because they are two few in number. The real roadblocks are the United States Constitution and exposure. For the Progressive agenda to move forward the United States Constitution must either be redefined or completely altered and even more important, the true nature of their agenda must remain secret to the voting public.

Most of America’s people live their lives comfortably in the middle of the political spectrum. They recognize the need for essential services but are fiscally conservative. They do not see America as an aggressor but they recognize that the only real deterrent to the aggression of other nations is a military that is adequately armed and trained for war. They willingly reach out to help anyone in a time of need but do not appreciate a government entitlement machine that makes those in need recipients for life. They welcome lawful émigrés to this nation but demand that our borders and our country are protected from those that would enter illegally for the purpose of exploiting America’s generous nature. Most of all, they are not isolationists at heart but want to see some common sense applied to trade agreements and the import tax structure that will preserve our industries and economic well being. Any blatant attempt to violate these basic ideals was historically met with angry retribution at the polls.

Thomas Jefferson warned us about the evils of print news when he said that “A man who reads nothing is better informed than a man who reads nothing but newspapers.” In Jefferson’s day, print news was actually worse than today’s media. It was mostly personal opinion and would openly praise their friends while publically roasting their enemies with little concern for the truth. As newspapers became corporations (and as the law began to deal with those that would print outright falsehoods) the press became more responsible and over time, had begun to establish trust with the public.

There had been no real shift in the basic ideals of the American electorate but starting with the Progressive era in the early 1900’s, there was another major shift in the reporting of news. Papers in major cities began to editorialize again rather than report and they intentionally infused the news with the opinion of the author rather than detail the events of the day. Since there were very few alternative news sources, they were quite successful at shaping the opinions of their readers without much criticism or notice.

The Progressive wordsmiths seeking to shape public opinion through their papers enjoyed, or rather exploited, the faith they had established with their readers during the decades of work by dedicated reporters that were interested in truth over ideology. Now it was different. Progressives sought to change America and before that could happen, they had to either change American opinion or obfuscate the true purpose of Progressivism in a jumble of doublespeak. Isn’t it ironic that now that the press has come full circle Mr. Jefferson looks more like a prophet than someone who was merely commenting on the common practices of corrupt news men during his lifetime?

Now that the news was being crafted to support the agenda of Progressives, the human aspect was being calmed, if not controlled. Those that did not believe the positive press given to the Progressive movement would be demoralized with the unending stories about the excesses of the wealthy and the abuses they waged against the poor defenseless workers. The relentless assault in the press dulled the senses of readers until they were not even sure what the truth was anymore. Fortunately, we now have a multitude of new sources for information. The internet and cable television have shattered the monopoly held by the graduates of liberal schools of journalism and the people have overwhelmingly responded by seeking those sources over traditional media by a factor of two and three to one.

Progressives are the one group in America that truly believes that the ends justify the means. They began the underhanded work of using the courts to redefine the Constitution early in the 20th century while people were still under the ether of the liberal press. Roscoe Pound was a noted legal scholar and educator. In 1908, he was part of the founding editorial staff of the first comparative law journal in the U.S., the “Annual Bulletin” of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association. He was also the founder of the movement for "sociological jurisprudence", an influential critic of the U.S. Supreme Court's "liberty of contract" (freedom of contract) line of cases and one of the early leaders of the movement for American Legal Realism.

Sociological jurisprudence was a new idea in law at the turn of the 20th century and would provide the means whereby the courts could assume the role of not simply trying a case based on current law but could instead be used to bring divergent interests into alignment with each other. The long and the short of it is that it is a sociological tool whereby the courts could “translate” law as society changed rather than rely on the written word of law. That one move would give Progressives unbridled power to alter the Constitution through judicial interpretation rather than through the Amendment process intended by the founders.

Of course to make sociological jurisprudence work they needed to nullify the intent of the founding fathers. That would be done through the theory of Legal Realism. Legal Realism states that all people are flawed and therefore, the laws written by man must contain some measure of those flaws. The founding fathers, it was argued, were not trying to construct a nation for all men but to protect their own limited interests. It was therefore right and proper to “adjust” those laws by interpretation using the lens of the modern era to affect a more just society and those interpretations would include the United States Constitution. That was the only way the Progressives could craft legislation that directly violates the Tenth Amendment, allowing the Federal Government the ability to seize powers that previously belonged solely to the States and the people.

Healthcare is a perfect example. The Constitution does not grant the Federal Government the authority to direct, control or regulate healthcare but the government has been using sociological jurisprudence to broaden the power granted to Congress to “provide for the general welfare” under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution since the time of Theodore Roosevelt. The original meaning of this phrase, as clearly enunciated in the Federalist Papers, was to provide for the general welfare of the Union as an entity or a collection of States. It did not give Congress the authority to provide anything directly for the citizens of this nation except for an America free from Federal interference so that they could pursue “life, liberty and happiness” as each saw fit. Progressives had tainted the courts so that the “general” in that phrase was reinterpreted to mean all of the citizenry and not simply the nation and that is now being used as the justification for this onerous healthcare reform act.

Unfortunately, Progressives are not all about doing things for the “general welfare” out of some undying sense of social justice. The roots of Progressivism are based in a firm belief that there are people in this world that are highly advanced and that these “elite” must accept the responsibility for those that are incapable of making proper choices for themselves. The early Progressives looked to Europe for guidance took many cues from Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche and other radical philosophers. They were firm believers in eugenics and the theory that superior qualities could be bred to create a ruling class of elites and that out of necessity, governmental powers would eventually be limited to that ruling class. Some even proposed the elimination of people that fell below an acceptable minimum of intelligence or drive. George Bernard Shaw felt that a life that was of no use to society could not be much use to that unfortunate person either. He suggested that chemists devise a humane gas that would kill instantly and painlessly and that we should even play classical music as we marched people of limited use to their demise.

Curiously, one of the Progressives that helped flesh out the idea for a universal healthcare system, Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel. Ezekiel had written about the need to ration care based upon the ability of the patient to contribute to society. While that is a far cry from Shaw’s call for gas chambers, it still results in an early demise for those that cannot effectively add value to the collective and tells me that the Progressive’s view of human life is far less sacred than that of the founding fathers.

The only thing that preserves our Constitution; our protection against this politically inbred army of self proclaimed elites is the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. That separation guarantees that major changes in our government are only possible if an overwhelming majority of the people support those changes. It is noteworthy to mention that every Progressive President to date has sought to sidestep the separation of powers required in the Constitution and expand the power of the Presidency through agencies, bureaucracies and now, Czars. If they succeed, that will mark the beginning of the end of the Republic.

Paul

New Budget - Same Old Story

One would have thought that after the recent Democratic losses in three States, two of which were staunch Democratic areas, that the President would have heard the message from the voters loud and clear. Well, apparently they still can’t hear you. Glenn Beck warned on one of his shows after the Massachusetts victory for Republican Scott Brown that one of two Presidents would emerge from the ashes. Either we would see a politician that would move to the center as Bill Clinton did after his 1994 midterm thrashing or we would see Obama the ideologue stomping on the gas to force his agenda through. For those that didn’t see a glimpse of the ideologue during the State of the Union address we have additional proof today in the President’s budget proposals for 2011.

The budget for FY 2011 announced today will top $3.8 trillion dollars and add another $1.56 trillion dollars to the national debt….if we are lucky. White House Budget Director Peter “Loverboy” Orszag claims that the President’s plans will trim over $1 trillion dollars from the Federal Budget within the next ten years but that is one of the oldest tricks in the books. All the President has to do to achieve that is to announce that they didn’t spend money they were planning to and Viola! $1 trillion dollars has been trimmed from the Federal Budget. It is a phantom trillion, a savings that is as hard to prove as all of the “jobs saved” under the last stimulus bill. Before the President could be able to claim such a savings with authority, he would have to be believable and that is equally as laughable.

President Obama's budget plans project $5.08 trillion in deficit spending over the next five years -- a 35 percent increase over what the administration projected a year ago. Even the current budget deficit is suspect as the revenue figures include income from Cap and Trade; a bill that has not yet passed Congress and if economic conditions do not vastly improve, will never pass. Just in case you have lost track of Cap and Trade, the administration is now trying to sell this massive energy tax under the heading of a “comprehensive energy bill”. Similar to the renaming of global warming to climate change now that the planet appears to be cooling….it still stinks no matter what it is calls.

To spite the President’s call for development of American domestic energy resources during the State of the Union Address, including oil, coal and nuclear power, this budget cuts subsidies for fossil fuels netting a reduction of $31.5 trillion dollars over ten years. That will raise costs for American energy consumers, only adding to the additional costs for energy promised if the President’s energy bill is passed. Pass out the candles folks…the lights are going out if Obama get’s his way. The fact is that either we develop domestic resources as politician Obama promised during his speech or we tax the hell out of them as ideologue Obama promises in his budget. If I had to guess which one to bet on, all I have to do is look at his track record. His speeches have so far, meant nothing while the black and white, tax and spend ink on the pages of his budgets have seized the day. Perhaps I should have said red and white, tax and spend ink?

So where is the attention to the plight of unemployed Americans? Certainly, you won’t find it in this budget proposal. Ever since the inception of the personal income tax under Woodrow Wilson, the historical evidence proves over and over that increases in taxes reduce overall revenue to the treasury because of the negative effect they have on business. Even Obama said that small business provides more than half the jobs in the United States. Whether or not he actually believes that is up for debate but he did say it. They why does every major initiative the President is trying to get passed into law contain oppressive new regulations and massive new taxes that will strangle the number one job creator in the United States?

While the White House happily announces that the mediocre growth of the economy in the last quarter is proof that the recession is easing, much of that growth was brought on by government spending on pet projects that provided little or no relief to the unemployed. The hopeless ideologue and his “progressive friends” in Congress (his words, not mine) still fail to see that government does not create jobs. Only the private sector can create real and lasting employment and only during those odd years when government stops meddling in their affairs. Government can create jobs within their own bloated bureaucracies but those “support” jobs still rely on collecting taxes from income generated by real companies that pay real wages to real employees.

In a quick summary taken from business 101, companies basically have two kinds of employees beyond the owners; sales people that generate revenue for the company and support people that use a portion of that revenue to provide support for the sales people. When times are lean and cuts must be made, the first positions any company will eliminate are support staff because it makes no fiscal sense to eliminate the people that actually earn money for the company. What ideologues and Congressional Progressives still fail to understand is that the Federal government, in its entirety, is the support staff for the American people. We are the revenue generators and there isn’t a nickel they spend that does not come directly from our earnings. Contrary to every known law of fiscal responsibility, the Federal government under the Progressive banner is expanding the support staff of the nation at the expense of the people that actually earn the money. It cannot work.

Every time that the Federal government has cut taxes it has led directly to an expansion of the economy and to the growth of revenues to the treasury. The increases in debt have always come from a spendthrift Congress and their history is to spend every penny they can get their hands on, and more. The best possible ratio of taxes to GDP is 20%. That is when you can afford a reasonable level of government and still maintain decent measure of economic growth. Of course that has to be the real GDP; not one that has been inflated by the influence of government stimulus spending. The other segue is that the taxes collected cannot exclusively be taken from those that are the investors and creators of the businesses that actually create jobs. Only the demented views of the radical left see wealth as an evil worthy of punishment; the rest of us see it as a statement of opportunity and the rewards of hard work. The truth is that I don’t believe they really think wealth is evil. Most of them are wealthy in their own right. They do use the evil rich argument as a tool to gain the support of the average American when they pass tax plans that confiscate unconscionable amounts of that wealth.

There appears to be no recognition in Washington that we are in serious economic trouble and no one but the government has ever proposed that they can spend themselves out of debt. Just a few short years ago, China was purchasing 50% of the notes that fund our annual deficit. Now that the dollar has shrunk thanks to the runaway printing of money at the Federal Reserve, China has lost billions as the interest we paid them to service the debt has diminished over 17% this year alone. The net result is that China only purchased 4% of our deficit spending in 2009 and that is just a portend of things to come.

The balance of our deficit had to be financed elsewhere, with the American people picking up a large part of it. Don’t kid yourself; that is not an indication that the American people have faith in the solvency of the Federal government. That really speaks about the lack of faith in the nation’s banking system. Wary investors are asking the Fed to hold their money, even at zero interest as the last safe haven before they begin dumping dollars and buying gold. When that begins to happen it will signal that events are about to enter a new and dangerous territory….a territory last visited by the Weimar Republic after World War One.

Paul

What is Obama's Top Priority?

The President mentioned a whole host of non-descript people that keep saying “slow down” to which Obama commented…”How long must we wait?” So who are these mysterious voices? Republicans have been effectively locked out of the negotiations so it can’t be them. The Tea Party people have been dismissed by this administration as crazy and the polls show that Americans are already angry for being ignored so it can’t be them either. Progressive Democrats are all behind the Obama agenda and are urging immediate action so nope, not them. The moderate Democrats might feign resistance but we now know they are just looking for their buy-out so that roadblock evaporates as soon as the cash is on the table. The secret service keeps the President a comfortable distance from nearly everyone else so I thought perhaps it was the Salahi’s; but they are little more than media hounds and wouldn’t dare risk exposure by taking any side in the discussion.

If Obama weren’t a Progressive radical with a heavy Chicago political background, I might think it were his conscience speaking to him but we all know that Chicago politicians and Progressive radicals have no conscience. With all other possibilities scientifically excluded, that leaves only one voice as the possible suspect; the voice no one in Washington ever mentions….the voice of reason.

I did not find it surprising that Obama didn’t mention the multitude of voices chiding him to accelerate the process; to force legislation before the mid-term elections eliminate the dominance of Congressional Progressives. These voices want healthcare reform with a strong public option because that is the one thing that will bring about their real goal of Socialized medicine within ten years. These voices want Cap and Trade because they know what most Americans don’t. That Cap and Trade is not about saving the planet from global warming but saving the planet from Capitalism. It is a mechanism that will bridle this nation’s ability to further develop domestic energy resources and will complete the migration of manufacturing industries to countries that do not possess the same penchant for self destruction.

We have been discussing those voices for quite some time on the Vigilance Project. The United Nations; George Soros and the multitude of Marxist organizations that he funds through the Tides Foundation; ACORN; The Apollo Alliance; SEIU; G.E. and even though there are many more, let us not forget the Progressives firmly lodged in Congress. Considering the initiatives the President still claims are a priority for the nation, each and every one of these factions are more than adequately represented by this administration.

So why didn’t Obama mention these voices in the State of the Union Address? Because they mirror his own ideas of what this nation should look like before he’s through with it. It’s kind of like Karaoke….It might sound like you’re singing but if you are really quiet, you can hear the original song and artist clearly in the background. When Obama is quiet (he has to sleep sometimes) you can clearly hear the background music in the speeches and interviews of Progressive Democrats, Andy Stern, Jeff Immelt and whispered by all of those radical supporters of the Socialization of America. They are no more dragging Obama to the left than an alcoholic must be dragged to a bar.

The State of the Union Address contained as many contradictions as it did lies. Jobs creation is the administration’s number one priority but we must complete healthcare and pass a comprehensive climate bill; both of which are sited by the business community as creating a climate of uncertainly that has prevented business owners from risking any expansion. The President announced support for developing domestic energy resources in America including nuclear, coal and oil but he has already placed the right people within the EPA that will make sure that can never happen.

Every possible avenue available to the radical environmental movement has been used to indefinitely stall projects that would have developed domestic energy resources in this country. They don’t do this in other countries because we are the only idiots that give them unlimited access to our courts even when the figurehead filing the suit does not reside in the community where the project has been proposed. If the President weren’t merely playing lip service to the development of domestic energy he would be asking Congress to declare the development of these resources vital to the strategic interests on the United States and block interference from both the environmental left and the EPA.

The President announced that the Federal government will fund a high speed rail project because Europe and Japan have taken the lead in high speed rail and we cannot accept second place. Well, high speed rail makes perfect sense in Europe and Japan because they do not have vast tracts of undeveloped land not to mention that many of those nations are barely larger than the state of Texas. We also have the burden of a twelve trillion dollar national debt that White House projections claim will double by the end of his second term and those projections do no include healthcare reform or the passage of a climate bill. To be able to call high speed rail an investment you must first be able to expect a return on that investment. Short of providing a bone for his union friends and of course, GE; there is no return for this so-called investment.

Yesterday the White House announced a plan to provide small business with a five-thousand dollar tax incentive for each new job they create in 2010. In addition, they will forego any increase in the company’s payroll taxes for those new employees. Sounds good right? Not really. The minimum wage established by the Federal government is currently $7.35 per hour. Add payroll taxes and benefits, because we are going to have to provide healthcare and each new employee will cost that company a minimum of $20,000 per year and the tax incentives and relief are a one time shot. That is like saying don’t worry about whether or not you can afford the payments…go ahead and buy that new car and I’ll throw in a tank of gas. Just think how far that will get you!

President Obama has stacked the deck against the American business community and they are not responding to his jobs initiatives or to the dangling carrots of tax breaks because until they can accurately forecast their future tax liabilities, they will not expand their markets and product lines nor add new employees. Unlike the Federal government, business must first ask the question of how they will be able to pay for additional labor or new programs or they will shortly cease to exist as a business.

Curiously, the President has once again proved his arrogance while speaking at a House Republican retreat today in Baltimore. He stood before the crowd and accused Republicans of portraying health care reform as a "Bolshevik plot" and telling their constituents that he is "doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America."

Er, sorry Mr. President…..that would be me, not the House Republicans. I wouldn’t be saying half of what I have been saying if your administration isn’t pocked with people with socialist and communist backgrounds and if your friends and advisors weren’t recycled 1960’s radicals.

Can you deny that you taught Alinsky in college and then applied those lessons to your community “organizing” techniques in the street of Chicago? Can you deny that your climate Czar, Carol Browner, belonged to an organization (Socialist International) that sought to unify the world under a single Socialist government or that your science Czar, John Holdren, proposed forced abortion and mandatory sterilization in his writings? Can you deny that your former green jobs Czar, Van Jones openly admitted to being a communist or that your own chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel thinks the First Amendment is overrated? I could go on and on but this is getting repetitious.

About the only thing we haven’t discussed on this subject is the purging of your administration of these pariahs only because you have thus far refused to do that. Without the dismissal of the radicals within your administration and circle of advisors, I can only conclude that your aim is to continue to foment support for a Bolshevik plot to take over the healthcare system and are indeed actively pursuing a path that will lead to the destruction of the Constitution of the United States and our Capitalist financial system.

Paul

The State of Confusion Address

The President took to the air last night to deliver his State of the Union Address after a day filled with one prediction after another of what this critical speech will contain. Obama is in a very difficult position as he enters his second year in office. The antics of his administration and Congressional Democrats have isolated him from Republicans, moderate Democrats and independents alike; his failure to deliver the most radical portions of his agenda have the far left nearly as angry with Obama as they were with Bush and the hundreds of billions he spent for “economic recovery” have not prevented the loss of an additional three million jobs since the Stimulus Bill was signed into law.

The dramatic losses for Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts have so far managed to quiet the biggest (the pun is definitely intended) loud mouth in the pro-Obama arsenal, Bob Beckel. Beckel, who was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Carter administration and a vociferous supporter of Obama as well as every bit of this administration’s most radical proposals. There is no government program or tax hike that could be too big for Beckel and even after Corzine’s loss in the New Jersey gubernatorial race, still maintained that this President would go down in history as the greatest President of all time. Well, if current events can shut even Beckel up, what chance does this President have that this speech will reverse his fortunes and restore his plummeting approval ratings?

Many have insisting that the President should step to the right; cutting taxes to stimulate business and begin an earnest assault on runaway Federal spending. Of course the Democratic strategists have already been saying that Obama finally gets it and his announcement that he intends to freeze discretionary spending for the next three years is proof that he is serious about tackling the economy which is one of the clear priorities of the American people. Of course that might have worked a couple of years ago or with another President but I doubt that will mean much now. Other Presidents didn’t have the additional baggage of not only breaking this many campaign promises but he has also been caught on a number of occasions just plain lying to the American people .

As they occurred, C Span reported on the closed door meetings that Obama had with Congressional Democrats, Senate Democrats, Heath Insurance and Pharmaceutical industry leaders as well as labor Unions, in his attempts to broker support for healthcare reform and yet he (Obama) appeared on network television this week and said that he held no closed door meetings on healthcare and made no closed door deals to buy support for healthcare. Really?

Does he really believe that if he says that often enough and loud enough that we will suddenly forget what we saw with our own eyes? The spending freeze that he is planning is yet another lie. When he announced his plan to freeze Federal discretionary spending he left out a few little details. The discretionary spending the President refers to only represents a very small portion of the current Federal budget, roughly 17%, and I’m sure it just slipped his mind but he also forgot to mention that he had already raised discretionary spending 24% just in the past year. His freeze will do nothing more than lock in an average 8% annual increase over the spending levels of the Bush administration; spending levels that Candidate Obama called reckless.

To dispel any rumors; the President said little, if anything. What I thought was amusing was that Harry Reid was actually caught yawning as the President announced that two million jobs were saved and taxes were cut for 95% of all Americans. Well of course you would have to ignore that three million jobs were lost since the Stimulus Bill was signed into law or that seven million jobs were lost since Obama took office for that to even be a half truth. But let’s not let petty little numbers stand in the way of progress. Oh by the way…..shifting the tax burden from the individuals to businesses does not yield a tax cut. Business NEVER pays taxes. Those taxes are always passed on to the consumer as a rise in the price of goods or services; in essence, a middle class tax increase.

Oh but fear not. Obama promised, well he suggested, a small business tax break to incentivize hiring but like so many of his promises, that is something only Congress can do. Congressional Republicans would agree, at least most of them, but Democrats would have to surrender their chief guarantor of reelection…..class warfare. How could any self-respecting, OK….I take that back…how could any Democrat hope to gain reelection if they took the side of those evil business owners? After all, they have railed against them for years!

I empathize with the President. It must be exceedingly hard to stand before all of Congress, not to mention the nation, and lie your butt off but then again, he wanted the job. Perhaps he thought it would be like Chicago where animated speech mattered more than content. Perhaps he thought it was more like it was a dozen years ago and no one would pay attention. But this is 2010 and we are all watching the shell game (for a change).

The fact is, Obama said nothing I didn’t expect. Even his call for exploiting America’s energy resources is a red herring. He has already appointed the radical left to positions of power within the EPA that will trump any chance that we will develop nuclear, coal or oil powered plants within the United States. That is apparently the domain of developing nations and he cannot develop those resources and keep his promise to the United Nations.

The most important thing in his speech took place nearly at the end. Despite the failing economy and the continuing decline in employment, our President still thinks that driving the nation into the budget-busting abyss of the current healthcare reform legislation and an equally devastating climate agreement is something he can talk us into supporting. I will give him a little credit though. He all but admitted that this was an effort that has been underway for one-hundred years. Not climate change….healthcare. Theodore Roosevelt started that. Fortunately he failed, and everyone who has tried it since has thankfully failed as well.

It is apparent that the President still doesn’t get it and probably never will. He called for another jobs bill, in essence a third stimulus bill, which only proves he is a hopeless ideologue. It seems that everyone but the Federal government knows that government does not create jobs, the private sector does and the private sector can not flourish as long as government is picking their pockets. The job prospects in this country will not improve as long as business remains skeptical about what their tax liability or energy costs will be but this President still wants healthcare reform and cap and trade. He has empowered the EPA to unilaterally curtail carbon emissions with total disregard to the economic damage that will cause if the Congress rejects the climate bill. He wants to invest in high speed rail even though 10% of this nation no longer needs a ride to work. He wants to accelerate green initiatives claiming this is the wave of the future but where is our manufacturing base? Those “green” jobs will be located in countries that will not have the added burden of skyrocketing energy costs because of the government regulation of greenhouse gasses; regulations imposed because of corrupt climate studies and United Nations interference.

Obama said in a recent interview that he would rather be a really good one term President than a mediocre two term President. I don’t think he looked behind door number three. If this President and his co-conspirators on Capitol Hill do not halt this crazy march towards socialism; if they keep giving speeches instead of listening to the American people; if they keep huddling behind closed doors, the current trend will continue through the November election and Barack Obama will be a lame duck in the second year of his first term. He can call the Republicans the party of no if that suits him. What he fails to see is that at the request of the American people, the Republicans will be the party of no more!

Paul

Who is Ellie Light?

In 1722, Ben Franklin was a fifteen year old apprentice for his older brother’s printing business and news paper, the New England Courant. Young Franklin was as opinionated in his youth as he would be throughout his life and wrote on a variety of subjects hoping they would be published in the Courant. To his dismay, his brother James rejected Benjamin’s writings and instead, insisted that his apprentice devote his attention to the duties of an apprentice.

Not one to be dismissed, Ben Franklin masqueraded as a middle aged widow and secretly submitted a series of letters to the New England Courant under the pseudonym of Silence Dogood. He slipped the first letter under the door of the Courant one night and was delighted when he overheard his brother discussing publishing the letter in the paper. Silence Dogood submitted a new letter every fortnight (fourteen days) as promised in the first letter and each one was subsequently published in the Courant. The letters delighted readers which were a mix of commentary and satire. So complete was the character that Ben had created that once Silence said that she had been widowed, a number of men actually sent proposals of marriage to Silence Dogood through the news paper hoping to gain her attention.

The Courant published fourteen letters in all before James found out that Silence Dogood was none other than his younger brother, Ben. James was furious at having been tricked into publishing Ben’s work especially after he expressly told Ben over and over again to stick to his assigned tasks and leave the writing to those that were employed for that purpose. The rift between the two brothers was serious enough that Ben would eventually leave his apprenticeship without permission and escape to Philadelphia.

It seems that we now have a new Silence Dogood on our hands and while she is not a widow or even witty, she is an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. Letters from a person claiming to be Ellie Light began appearing in January at news paper offices in cities across the country and even at some foreign news papers. Each letter was only slightly different from the others; containing the same basic message which is curiously similar to the excuses that Democratic strategists offer for Obama’s poor performance as President.

The underlying message in the Ellie Light letters is that Obama is doing the best that he can and that he can’t simply wave a magic wand to make all of the problems he inherited from George Bush vanish. She certainly tows the Party line by denigrating Bush, the Tea Party movement, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News before continuing to say that she is appalled at the lack of support that Obama has received from the main stream press and that they appear to be ignorant of the landslide victories that swept him into the Presidency in November or 2008.

Letters of political support are nothing new for the editorial pages of local newspapers and Ellie Light would probably have been chalked up as just another one of Obama’s core group of supporters that would still defend him no matter how badly he fails except there were some red flags that began to appear. More than sixty Ellie Light letters were published in American newspapers and while each one was signed by Ellie Light, she would list her home town as being in the circulation area of that particular newspaper. Once someone began connecting the dots, questions began to fly as to the real identity of Ellie Light and several websites ran with that story. Ellie Light would issue a response to those questions in a series of e-mails to the Plain Dealer, a major daily paper in Cleveland Ohio. Curiously, that e-mail correspondence ended abruptly when she was asked about the different home towns associated with her letters.

So who is Ellie Light? Well, someone named Barbara Brooks claimed to be Ellie Light in her face book page but the Plain Dealer has since spoken with two people that say they are Barbara Brooks. One says she’s a divorced nurse and is the author of the Ellie Light letters and the other claims her husband, not her, wrote the Ellie Light letters. While the Plain Dealer did not elaborate on the husband of Barbara number two, they did report on their interview with Barbara number one.

Barbara number one, the one that claims she is Ellie Light, says she that as a traveling nurse, she has worked in a number of hospitals across the county. She claims that she used the names local towns as her home for each paper because many papers will not print letters submitted by people that do not reside in their circulation area. Brooks denies the suggestions that her letter writing campaign was a plot concocted by the Obama administration saying that if that were true, she would not be whining about the lack of support for the President and would have gone with the White House assertions that support for the President and his agenda remains solid. Of course Ms. Brooks uses Skype, an online phone service and that makes her hard to trace but the Plain Dealer says that Brooks did provide a home address located somewhere in California.

Curiously, a third “Ellie Light has now surfaced. A woman claiming her real name is actually Ellie Light contacted the radio talk show of Michael Smerconish today. Mr. Smerconish describes himself as a life-long Republican and despite his support for many conservative positions, supported Barack Obama in the 2008 election. His support for Obama earned him the honor of being the first radio talk show that was graced with an interview with the President. The Ellie Light that called Smerconish also claims to be a traveling nurse that calls southern California home. Weird huh?

So many Ellie Lights and yet none were asked the crucial question of why the IP address (a computer’s personal identification number) was different in each e-mail, some originating in several foreign countries. That would be a neat trick for a traveling nurse but easily explainable if the letters were actually disseminated from all of those areas. As it turns out “Left Coast Rebel”, a conservative blog, provided a tip on Ellie Light to Dan Reihl of “Reihl World View” after someone claiming to be Ellie Light left a comment on his blog using the screen name “Winston44”. Dan researched that lead and found what appeared to be a dormant Twitter account under that name. While there were no tweets, winston44 followed eighteen people and had six followers. Following a hunch that most people will first add the people they know to a new Twitter account, Dan traced the first of winston44’s contacts and surprise, surprise. That account belonged to Adam Segal, President of the 2050 group.

The 2050 group is an international public relations firm and Segal had been working with the National Alliance for Hispanic Health Care in their push for Obama-care. A November 23rd press release placed the National Alliance for Hispanic Health Care at the White House for a meeting with the President over healthcare. Segal is also well known to be a supporter President Obama especially, his healthcare reform initiative. Now that is curious isn’t it? The Ellie Light letters came from multiple IP addresses, some from Europe. Now there appears to be a link between an international public relations firm that is very friendly to this administration and a Twitter account that Ellie Light used to post at least one comment on a conservative blog. Coincidentally, that public relations firm would have no problem generating e-mails from multiple computers around the world.

This story is evolving daily and Dan Reihl says that he has circumstantial evidence that winston44 is none other than Samantha Powers, the wife of Obama’s regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein. It just seems that every time you research anything having to do with this administration that webs appear; magically connecting all of the usual suspects so none of this really surprises me.

To read the article on Ellie Light in the Left Coast Rebel follow the link below:
http://www.leftcoastrebel.com/2010/01/ellie-light-and-white-house-via-riehl.html

For a look at Reihl World View use: http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2010/01/ellie-light-now-mark-spivey.html

Paul

What Does the Election of Scott Brown Mean?

After a two week absence, so much has happened that I barely know where to begin. I suppose an obvious place to start would be the election of Scott Brown to the Massachusetts Senate seat previously held by Ted Kennedy. This Republican victory overshadowed both the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races for several reasons. First, the “Liberal Lion”, Ted Kennedy had held that seat for nearly fifty years and the White House felt secure that a Democrat would have no problem capitalizing on Kennedy’s legacy. Second, Massachusetts is well known to be one of the most Liberal states in the union, consistently sending the left of the left to Washington and third, without the 60th vote in the Senate, the President’s healthcare reform initiative would be all but dead, something Massachusetts Liberals would want to avoid; at least that is what everyone thought.

Scott Brown campaigned on the idea that his was the vote that would finally put the brakes on the President’s agenda. There was no doubt that this election would determine if the healthcare reform act, as well as many of the President’s other ultra-Liberal programs, would ever see the light of day and the Democrats responded with as vicious a campaign as had ever been seen. Even after all the stops were pulled including a last minute Presidential visit to try and garner support for Coakley, the voters would elect Republican Scott Brown to replace Ted Kennedy by a tidy margin.

To most reasonable people, this was a wholesale rejection of not only the healthcare reform bill but of the openly corrupt tactics that were being used to force it through the legislative process. Congressional Democrats had defied the will of the people and those people were given an incredible opportunity to send a message that could not be ignored. Well, it could not be ignored unless you were a hopeless ideologue that intended to pursue your agenda regardless of the consequences. Moderate Democrats heard the message loud and clear but our Progressive friends and their President seem to have missed the mark entirely.

According to the President, they were so busy handling the fiscal crisis that he inherited from Bush that they…get this….”failed to adequately speak to the American people about what their core values are”. After the 1994 mid-term elections, President Clinton faced the nation after a massive Democratic defeat and said quite eloquently “We hear you”. Not this President. Instead of admitting that the defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and finally, Massachusetts, were the revocation of the mandate that he only imagined he had, Obama would rather believe that he didn’t explain his ideas in terms that we could understand. How condescending can one man be? Obama apparently believes that if the voters rejected his plans, it was only because he didn’t speak slowly enough or didn’t use the little words that we idiots would understand.

Obama added that the anger of the voters that prompted them to vote for Scott Brown was the same anger that had swept him into office a year earlier. A psychologist on one talk show panel said that this displayed what could only be called, narcissistic tendencies; that this statement was as foolish as a man that would say his wife filed for divorce to be with her new lover not because she was rejecting him, but as a different manifestation of the same love for her new man that had first brought him and his wife together years earlier. I know that sounds foolish but think of what is being said here. Obama believes, or at least he says he does, that the recent Republican victories are just an extension of anti-incumbency anger and that is really only a rejection of previous Bush era policy, not his. The only problem with that argument is that Coakley is not an incumbent that supported Bush policy; she is a Democrat that supports current Obama policy.

Even more bizarre than Obama’s statements are those of the Progressive Democrats in Congress. They are blaming the defeat of Coakley on their failure to push harder for a healthcare reform bill that contained a strong public option. Howard Dean, former DNC Chairman and failed Presidential candidate, absolutely refuses to accept that this is in any way a rejection of Obama’s Socialist agenda and instead believes with all his heart that the Massachusetts’s voters were punishing the Democratic Party for not being Liberal enough. Let me get this right. Massachusetts’s voters were so upset that healthcare reform hadn’t passed that they elected the only credible roadblock to the passage of the healthcare reform bill? He is crazy, isn’t he?

Democratic Strategists are even funnier as they weasel their way around questions about these three major losses for Democrats. The first thing they have all done was to point to the special election in New York’s 23rd district where the Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman was narrowly defeated by Democrat challenger Bill Owens. The results had Owens winning with 49% of the vote to Hoffman’s 45% with Republican Dede Scozzafava still holding 6% of the vote a week after she dropped out of the race, throwing her support behind Owens. Unfortunately, the race was close enough to fall pray to the “ACORN affect” as ACORN focused their “get the vote out” campaign solidly behind Owens. Considering the indictment of ACORN employees for voter fraud in other states, I would guess that if Doug Hoffman had persisted, there would probably been a sufficient number of suspicious ballots found in a comprehensive recount to have shifted the election in his favor.

The race in Massachusetts was lost in part because of the perception of the American people that we are not only being ignored by Congressional Democrats and the President but that since we are resisting this push towards socialization, we are not even worthy to see what they voting on; that even the discussions of the bill are to be hidden from the ungrateful masses that don’t understand that the President is doing this for our own good. The message was certainly clear but the intended recipients are still ignoring it. They have already said that they intend to force this legislation through in true Saul Alinsky form…by any means necessary. The difference between politicians and ideologues is that politicians can be swayed by the threat of losing an election. Socialist ideologues will sacrifice themselves to progress their agenda for the good of the collective. This message of “full speed ahead” only serves to tell us who these people are. Their intent is clear…to bring about massive social change that cannot be reversed no matter who is elected later. There are already provisions in the healthcare bill that will prevent the repeal of certain key portions of the reform act should the “wrong” Party gain power in the November elections.

The election of Scott Brown may be the single most important electoral race in the past 100 years and the only hope of defeating the nefarious plans of the Progressive movement. What must be watched very closely now is how long they will attempt to delay the certification of the election results. Obama spoke out against delaying the certification process but I fear that is just to get his voice on record as opposing that dirty little trick to distance himself from something that he knows is already in the works.

The State of the Union address is coming this Wednesday and I will bet now that it will be another hour long stab at blaming Bush for the economy, the recent attempts by Al Qaida to inflict more damage on the United States and the anger of the American people. Once he is confident that everyone remembers Bush he will make another pledge to have healthcare reform back on the table as a dire need of a compassionate nation. Lenin never took no for an answer and neither will his protégé, Barack Hussein Obama.

Paul

The Ever Vigilant Mother

For the past two weeks I have been with family in New York after the passing of my mother, Irene Magel. My mother was not sophisticated, but she was wise. She was not a celebrity nor was she known to all that many, but she was loved by all that knew her. She was not rich but she did possess a wealth of love and respect that comes with the life-long struggle of raising seven children. Most importantly, armed with her faith and convictions, she faced death without fear or question and with the satisfaction that her work on earth was not simply over, but was in fact, complete.

As I was growing up, history fascinated me. Reading about the early 20th century and how far we had progressed in that short span of time amazed me. It seemed like such a brief moment between the first flight of the Wright brothers and the supersonic Concorde; Goddard’s miniature rockets and the Apollo 11 moon landing; Marconi’s wireless and the cell phone. I attended the New York World’s Fair in 1965 and marveled at the bright, shiny future that was predicted for us. If only a portion of that was to come true, what a fantastic world it would be indeed.

I spoke with my parents about what it was like as they grew up; witnessing the vast differences between what was available to them in their childhood compared to the marvels of the modern world. I was a bit surprised that my mother didn’t find it all that amazing. It never dawned on me that looking at the quantum leap in the quality of life between 1920 and 1980 retrospectively, was entirely different than living through those changes one day at a time. After all, the earth didn’t move when cassette tapes gave way to CD’s or when pocket calculators were replaced by personal computers because those advances happened in incremental steps. Instead of listening to her stories of awe, I found that my mother’s perception of those changes were no different than my own experiences of living life in a dynamic and constantly changing world; mundane and hardly worth the attention. Instead, she found all of her joys and sorrows in the people that surrounded her life and paid very little attention to such trivial appliances.

My mother did tell me about the challenges she faced over the years. She was a mere eight years old when the stock market collapsed in 1929; thrusting her world into chaos and uncertainty. She rarely spoke about her own hardships during those years but as many that lived through that nightmare, she developed a compulsive frugality and would let nothing go to waste. I don’t think anyone that was alive during the great depression ever felt secure again and they would be haunted by a nagging fear for the rest of their lives that those dark days could return at any time and without warning.

Irene was born into a modest existence in Brooklyn, New York and while her childhood was unremarkable, it was still a part of the experiences that would shape her into the person she would become. The meager times and rough neighborhood could have taken her in any direction but she was devoutly religious and her faith would guide her through the years; steeling her against the influences that so many others fell pray to. She would eventually meet my father at a neighborhood party where my father volunteered to accompany her on her task to pick up hamburgers for the crowd. As they walked, they found a curious interest in each other. Before they ordered everyone else’s food, they decided to eat their burgers at the café while they sat and talked. My mother confessed that she wasn’t all that sure about my father because he was eleven years older than she was and to her, that was pretty darn old! Still, one thing led to another and despite the protests from her mother (my grandmother) she married my father just as World War II erupted.

My mother and father had very different personalities but unlike many couples today, found out that those differences complimented each other and that together they could accomplish things that neither would have been able to do alone. My father worked as a truck driver delivering home heating oil and would return each night exhausted and reeking of fuel oil. My mother worked to make a home for them and manage the meager pay my father earned at a time when so many others were out of work. Even though they struggled, their struggle must have seemed like a blessing compared to those that were living in makeshift shacks that dotted the edges of city dumps and vacant lots. While they were better off than many, they still faced the daily hardships of life during those stressful and unnerving years. To add to her list of hardships, my father would be drafted and deployed to the European theater while my mother was expecting their first son, Henry junior.

Unable to keep their apartment while my father fought in the war, my mother moved into her parent’s home while she awaited the arrival of her baby. As soon as she was able, she would work installing aircraft instruments not only to help provide for her son but to do her part for the war effort. While she labored in the factories, my father stormed the beaches of Normandy and would eventually make his way across France with General Patton’s Third Army. There were many nights my mother would shake in fear as the news broadcast the horrific stories of the casualties of war wondering if young Henry would ever meet his father. Though he was wounded several times, my father would survive the war and return to try and figure out how he would live with everything he had witnessed during that horrible campaign and my mother would forever be at his side to help him.

My mother told me the stories of how my father would push her from the bed and throw imaginary hand grenades in his sleep. Only God knows what he saw in the dark because he would never speak of what he faced during the war or what he would fight each night in his dreams. I do know that as my father approached his own death in 1986, he consulted a priest because he was deeply concerned about what he had to do during the war and how to reconcile God’s commandment against killing another human with the actions he was ordered to carry out. It was the one and only time I know of that he cried. Although the priest comforted him, reminding him that the destruction of that evil regime was in keeping with God’s plan for him and that his sins were already forgiven, I couldn’t help but feel a wave of profound sorrow for my father as I realized the heavy weight of the guilt that he had carried silently with him for over forty years.

My father’s experiences had shaped him and he would pass his sage wisdom on to me over the years. He provided me with a very clear view of right and wrong; good and bad, in terms that were rigid and painted in sharply contrasting black and white images. It would be my mother that softened the harsh lines between those two polar opposites and the small measure of gray that she added taught me compassion and forgiveness. It is her influence that gives me the ability to see the bigger picture; to add that little bit of understanding and empathy that makes me just a little more complete. To be perfectly clear, she was not contradicting my father but rather, adding the softness he kept hidden in his heart that we would not find his words. Like so many men of my father’s day, emotions did not come easy and he relied heavily on my mother to add that special touch for us.

I am not ashamed to say that I will miss my mother terribly, she was very special to me and we shared a bond that was unique, even among the others of our family. Thankfully, she also shared her faith with me so I am absolute in my belief that she is now in God’s hands and knowing her devotion to God, I am certain that she is basking in His Glory finally free from all of the pains and fears she suffered during her long struggle on this harsh planet. My children were equally blessed to have been a part of her life and all but my two youngest grandchildren were touched by her as well. Her funeral was surrounded by photographs and memories from our past and it was comforting to see that the services became a celebration of her life and not a statement of our grief over her passing.

Hers was a life of toil and sacrifice but she was neither bitter nor sorrowful. She gladly gave so that her children would have more than she did. She was meek and humble and never worried about how she would be remembered beyond the thoughts of her own children. She couldn’t begin to understand that she had more influence on my life than the most illustrious hero that ever lived throughout the ages. After I returned, I sat and rocked my grandson as I thought about my mother. I looked down at that sleeping child and saw some of my mother’s features on his tiny face. It was then that I realized that she isn’t really gone; she lives on quite happily in her children and her children’s children and that this was her final lesson for me.

Good night Mom, I love you.

Paul