March 2012 | Page 4 of 15 | Restoring Liberty

Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 1: Our One Last Chance to Preserve the Bill of Rights

March 26, 2012/0 Comments/in News /by newseditor

This Congress and President Obama have shredded the Bill of Rights. We have one last chance to restore the Founding Fathers’ bastion against a rogue Central State: the Bill of Rights.

“Everything that Richard Nixon did to me, for which he faced impeachment and prosecution, which led to his resignation, is now legal under the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).” Daniel Ellsberg. Can Congress legalize tyranny by passing a law that says it can? Can Congress shred the Bill of Rights by passing a law that says it can? Well, Congress has passed such a law, and President Obama–the most effective Trojan Horse president in American history, a plutocrat dressed as a “progressive”– rushed to sign it on New Years Eve 2011 when nobody was looking.

This is not a partisan issue, though various flaks and toadies are attempting to make it so. Here is how the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) describes the NDAA:Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

He signed it. We’ll fight it. President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes.

Here is a discussion of the two key sections of the act: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Wikipedia)

IRS targets Tea Party groups – their goal is silence of the right

March 24, 2012/12 Comments/in From Joe's Desk /by Joe Miller

The Tea Party is an amazing political phenomenon, one that remains strong despite the media’s all-out assault since its beginnings in 2009, and I am proud to be a part of it. If ever there was an All-American movement, it is the Tea Party. Patriotic, hard-working, family oriented, and focused on a simple request – limited government and fiscal responsibility. What’s not to like about it ? The answer is simple – it threatens the liberals grip on government and many other areas of our lives.

One of the revealing benefits of many concerned citizens becoming politically active is the realization by many that politicians are not as smart as they make themselves out to be. In fact, it becomes pretty distressing to see how limited is the knowledge base of many politicians in regards to the Constitution and American history. As more and more patriots get involved, our efforts become more effective, despite many setbacks and the continued assault by both the President and the MSM to derail the Tea Party.

While at CPAC this year, I met many great conservatives passionate about fighting for shared American ideals. There was a great cross-section of the country and all age groups. Especially heartening were the many young people, including some strong conservatives I met at the Yale Political Union in January. Another passionate and articulate Tea Party patriot who spoke at CPAC is Jennifer Stefano, who literally stumbled upon a Tea Party rally while taking a walk in the park with her family. Now she is an articulate and effective spokesman for the movement and drawing a lot of attention to the grass-roots movement.

Yet what is the response to the Tea Party from the MSM, the President, and now, the IRS ? Their goal is simply to silence the movement. Their number one argument is that the Tea Party is racist, the ultimate trump card they use when anything doesn’t go their way. While Occupy Wall St. can break laws all day long while politicians from Oakland to New York City cross their arms, the Tea Party is investigated in Draconian ways, now officially through the IRS.

Mark Levin is pursuing action against the IRS (Exempt Organization Division) for

using inappropriate and intimidating investigation tactics in the administration of applications for exempt status submitted by organizations associated with the Tea Party movement.

Michelle Malkin also reports on the IRS intimidation of Tea Party groups across the country.

Make no mistake, this is bullying at the highest levels of government. While the President and the MSM feign outrage at the slightest faux pas (real or imagined), real outrage should be directed at these type of Machiavellian steps our government seems to take with impunity. Let us work towards electing politicians who will uphold the Constitution and allow us to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness without the government meddling in our everyday lives.

Obamacare heads to the Supreme Court – Your Freedoms at Issue

March 23, 2012/16 Comments/in Health Care, POTUS /by Joe Miller

Obamacare heads to the Supreme Court next week, for an unprecedented five+ hours beginning on Monday and finishing on Wednesday. This is a defining moment in our nation. Keep in mind that we are not at a fork in the road – we’ve long gone past the fork down the road to Big Government. Make no mistake, it’s not about “bending the cost curve”, or “insuring the uninsured”, or even helping women. It’s all about power, and it always has been.

The net effect of this abomination of a bill will be to reduce the quality and availability of health care in the US while increasing the costs – everything they said it would not do. Margaret Thatcher said that she could never do what her counterpart Ronald Reagan did in the US, all because of the albatross of socialized health care in the UK.

Most likely the justices have already made up their mind, but it’s important to hear what the lawyers have to say. Should the court overturn the individual mandate, Obamacare is essentially dead, though they will no doubt keep it on life support until either it dies or Obama finishes his first and only term.

The individual mandate, if upheld, will open a flood-gate of “mandates” that will continue to erode your liberties, and it will take us so far down the road of Big Government that it might be difficult or impossible to turn back. But turn back we must.

The Republican Study Committee provides 5 graphs to show how bad this law is – and will be, if upheld.

Obamacare in pictures paints a distressing future, mostly with the spotlight on the negative effects, along with the blatant lies promulgated by the President and his minions in government and the press. You should review the others at the above link.

As John Sparks says at The Center for Vision & Values,

If the Court upholds the individual mandate, it would effectively mark an end to constitutional restraint on Congress and usher in a new era of uncertainty, one whereby the federal government would be controlled only by the self-restraint of elected legislators. The Court, as it were, will have let the constitutional reins fall loose and the federal stallion will gallop forward at an ever faster and more frightening pace.

We all need health care, and we all need affordable health care, at all stages of life. Like most things, our health is our own responsibility. But when unexpected circumstances happen as they always do, then a robust health-care system will have the resources to help those who find themselves with a medical emergency. Our nation has the greatest health-care system on earth – let’s not forget that. I pray that the Supreme Court will strike down this individual mandate, and that the next Congress releases to the deep sea this ball of chain that’s been attached to the US health care system.

Also, hear what Star Parker has to say about Obamacare.

Proposed UN Environmental Constitution For The World Would Establish An Incredibly Repressive System Of Global Governance

March 23, 2012/6 Comments/in News /by newseditor

Most people have no idea that the United Nations has been drafting an environmental constitution for the world that is intended to supersede all existing national laws. This document has a working title of “Draft International Covenant on Environment and Development” and you can read the entire thing right here. Work on this proposed world environmental constitution has been going on since 1995, and the fourth edition was issued to UN member states on September 22nd, 2010. This document is intended to become a permanent binding treaty and it would establish an incredibly repressive system of global governance. This “covenant”, as it is being called, claims authority over the entire global environment and everything that affects it. Considering the fact that everything that we do affects the environment in some way, that would mean that this document would become the highest form of law for all human activity. This proposed UN environmental constitution for the world is incredibly detailed. The U.S. Constitution only has 7 articles, but the UN document has 79 articles. If the U.S. eventually ratifies this treaty, any national, state or local laws that conflict with this covenant will be null and void. This is potentially one of the greatest threats to our national sovereignty that we have ever seen and we need to warn the American people about it.

Essentially what this proposed environmental covenant does is it takes the sustainable development principles underlying Agenda 21 and turns them into global constitutional law.

All parties to this new constitution would be forced to turn their nations into centrally-planned societies where all decisions about everything are evaluated within the framework of sustainable development.

If the United States became a party to this treaty, America would become a paradise for control freaks. Basic decisions about what you eat, about what you wear, about where you live, about how big a family you can have and about what activities you could engage in on a daily basis would be dictated by the mandates in the global constitution.

Photo Credit: United Nations Photo Creative Commons

Video: Marine Faces Dismissal Over Anti-Obama Web Posts

March 23, 2012/5 Comments/in Video /by newseditor

Obama’s team is cracking down hard on any soldiers that have the audacity to join the Tea Party. Here is a story about one young courageous Marine.

Marine sergeant faces discipline for Facebook critique of Obama

March 23, 2012/4 Comments/in News /by newseditor

(Reuters) – The Marine Corps has initiated disciplinary action against a Marine sergeant for comments he posted on his “Armed Forces Tea Party” Facebook page criticizing President Barack Obama, a spokesman said on Thursday.

Sergeant Gary Stein, 26, a weather forecaster assigned to Camp Pendleton near San Diego, cast the Marines’ reaction to his comments as an infringement on his freedom of speech and defended his right to express personal political opinions when he is off-duty and out of uniform.

“There is not a document in this world that trumps the United States Constitution,” the San Diego Union-Tribune quoted him as saying.

But Army veteran Rick Rogers, host of the San Diego military talk radio show “Front & Center,” said Stein appeared to be instigating a confrontation with the Marines “to get notoriety.” Stein previously ran afoul of the military over comments on his Armed Forces Tea Party page in 2010.

Defense Department rules allow military personnel to express political opinions so long as they are not doing so as representatives of the armed services.

Politics Puts Etch A Sketch Back In The Picture

March 23, 2012/3 Comments/in News /by newseditor

Pushed to the bottom of the toy box by video games and other high-tech gadgets, Etch A Sketch is suddenly drawing lots of attention, thanks to a gaffe that has shaken up the race for the White House.

Ohio Art, maker of the classic baby boomer toy, is sending a big box of Etch A Sketches to the presidential campaigns to say thanks for the publicity and a boost in sales.

It started when Mitt Romney strategist Eric Fehrnstrom was asked Wednesday about the candidate’s politics now versus next fall. He likened the Republican’s campaign to an Etch A Sketch: “You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

Democrats and Republicans alike seized on the remark, saying it was evidence that Romney is a flip-flopper willing to alter his positions for political gain.

GOP rival Newt Gingrich told voters in Louisiana that “having an Etch A Sketch as your campaign model raises every doubt about where we’re going.” Rick Santorum brandished an Etch A Sketch and told voters he is a candidate who stands “firmly on the rocks of freedom, not on the sands of an Etch A Sketch toy.” Santorum’s staff also handed out miniature Etch A Sketches to reporters.

Photo Credit: Donkey Hotey Creative Commons

Read More at OfficialWire By John Seewer, OfficialWire

US Voter Id laws now being reviewed by DOJ, Cuba, China, and Russia

March 23, 2012/4 Comments/in DOJ, Vote Integrity /by News Editor

Recently I checked into a hotel in the lower 48, and they asked for both my credit card and ID. Is this hotel racist for requiring my ID ? We all know the answer to that. Voter fraud is a serious issue in our nation, yet the integrity of the ballot box should be of the utmost importance.

In the last several months, the DOJ and Eric Holder blocked voter id laws in Texas and South Carolina. To gain entrance to the LBJ Library in Austin, Tx, participants had to show – you guessed it – their ID ! Now Holder’s partner in vote suppression histrionics, the NAACP, has scampered off to the United Nations Human Rights Council (including China, Cuba, and Russia) to whine about states attempting to require (live) voters to prove who they say they are.

And in the bucolic states of New Hampshire and Vermont, James O’Keefe exposed disturbing voter fraud. In New Hampshire, ballots in the name of dead people were handed out at multiple precincts. Imagine what happens in Chicago or Philadelphia.

From the Daily Caller, by Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski

The far left is making an unprecedented two-track move to derail states’ efforts to protect the integrity of the ballot box for this November’s elections. While the Department of Justice (DOJ) is blocking state efforts, liberal activists are taking this issue to the United Nations Human Rights Council. […]

In 2008 the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana voter ID law that is even more robust than the statutes from Texas and South Carolina. But Indiana is not subject to VRA Section 5, so Holder claims the law allows him to block those two states, even though he knows he can’t touch the third.

But while these domestic fights are underway, the NAACP is taking the issue of voter ID laws to the United Nations Human Rights Council (the successor to the Human Rights Commission), claiming that such ballot-box integrity measures violate the human rights of racial minorities under international law.

So they go to the United Nations. Specifically, to a body tasked with protecting human rights. Just to be clear, the nations comprising this supposed champion of human rights include dictatorial and authoritarian regimes like China, Cuba and Russia. […]

As we’ve written for Yale Law & Policy Review, the right to vote includes the right not to have your vote diluted by fraudulent votes. And as citizens, each of us has a duty to comply with reasonable measures to ensure that our elections are free and fair. In that vein, even liberal Justice John Paul Stevens agreed with moderate and conservative Supreme Court justices that voter ID laws are constitutional. […]

Ken Blackwell served as Ohio secretary of state and the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Ken Klukowski is a fellow with the American Civil Rights Union and is on faculty at Liberty University School of Law.

United Nations Human Rights Council

One of the greatest privileges of our nation is to vote. Diluting the integrity of the process hurts everyone. While the critics of voter id laws whine about vote suppression, it is they who love to keep poor people poor – it’s what they do. For those who don’t have an id, it is in their – and our nation’s – best interests to get one, and we should have programs in place to help them. Voter Id laws will of course “suppress” vote fraud – hurting the Democrats chances, hence, their bug-eyed opposition to them.

Middle school children assigned to do opposition research on Republicans

March 22, 2012/5 Comments/in Education /by Joe Miller

Is there any doubt what the Teacher Unions want, and by extension, what the Obama administration wants ? They want children on the Big Government team, otherwise known as the Democrats. They want YOUR children to learn that capitalism is bad, that all development is bad, that Big Government is good, and of course that Republicans are evil personified.

In Fairfax County, VA, middle school students were actually assigned to do opposition research on each of the Republican candidates for President, and then to forward this research to the Obama campaign. It seems to be getting old, but how much cacophony do you think would have emanated from the MSM had President Bush done this ?

Demographically, conservatives are outpacing the left in regards to being fruitful. Yet it doesn’t matter – the left does not need children, they take yours, as soon as they go to first grade, er, kindergarten.

From Kalyn McMackin at The Daily Caller

A Virginia middle school teacher recently forced his students to support President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign by conducting opposition research in class against the Republican presidential candidates.

The 8th grade students, who attend Liberty Middle School in Fairfax County, were required to seek out the vulnerabilities of Republican presidential hopefuls and forward them to the Obama campaign.

“This assignment was just creepy beyond belief — like something out of East Germany during the Cold War,” one frustrated father, who asked for his family to remain anonymous, told The Daily Caller.

The assignment was for students to research the backgrounds and positions of each of the GOP candidates for president and find “weaknesses” in them, the parent explained. From there, students were to prepare a strategy paper to exploit those weaknesses and then to send their suggestions to the Obama campaign.

More Fantasyland: Obama Promotes Algae as Fuel Source

March 22, 2012/7 Comments/in Energy, POTUS /by Joe Miller

First, Obama said we could save oil by proper inflating of our tires. Not just a little oil, but enough oil to account for what we’re NOT drilling. Still, a majority of Americans elected him. Three+ years later, another fantasy energy boondoggle surfaces, this time it’s even more of a head-scratcher (algae), and complete with massive subsidies to an exuberant CEO.

From Michelle Malkin:

Pond scum stinks. And so do the Obama administration’s enormous, taxpayer-funded “investments” in politically connected biofuel companies. While the president embarks on a green rehabilitation tour this week to quell growing public outrage about big green boondoggles, the White House continues to cultivate a cozy algae racket.

Obama’s promotion of algae as a fuel source at a campaign speech in Miami last month caught the nation’s attention. But algae companies have been banking on administration support from Day One. In December 2008, when the White House announced the nomination of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the CEO of Florida-based biofuels startup Algenol, Paul Woods, exulted to Time magazine: “You see this smile on my face? It’s not going away. Everyone is really excited by this.”

The next year, Woods and Algenol — dubbed “Obama’s favorite algae company” by Forbes magazine — racked up $25 million in federal stimulus grants from Chu. Say cheese.

Yet another algae-based biofuels developer, Sapphire Energy, has absorbed $105 million in stimulus funds and loan guarantees even as doubts about the practicality, efficiency and viability of pond-scum fuels multiply. Sapphire’s CEO, Jason Pyle, has donated exclusively to Democratic campaigns, candidates and committees — and his company’s website reads like a satellite White House communications office …

Duplicity is the progressive’s game, and they continue to play it at the expense of American jobs and security. No nation is going to be prosperous if they deny reality, as the Obama Administration continues to do time and again. Energy drives a nation, and affordable energy drives an economy. Yet the Administration (and their buddies in the MSM) yawn as gas hovers at $4.00 a gallon nationwide, as jobs, confidence, and investments continue to deteriorate.

Photoshop source