Secession: “Absolutely Nothing in the Constitution Prohibits It”

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For decades, it has been obvious that there are irreconcilable differences between Americans who want to control the lives of others and those who wish to be left alone. Which is the more peaceful solution: Americans using the brute force of government to beat liberty-minded people into submission or simply parting company? In a marriage, where vows are ignored and broken, divorce is the most peaceful solution. Similarly, our constitutional and human rights have been increasingly violated by a government instituted to protect them. Americans who support constitutional abrogation have no intention of mending their ways.

Since Barack Obama’s re-election, hundreds of thousands of petitions for secession have reached the White House. Some people have argued that secession is unconstitutional, but there’s absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. What stops secession is the prospect of brute force by a mighty federal government, as witnessed by the costly War of 1861. Let’s look at the secession issue.

At the 1787 constitutional convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, rejected it, saying: “A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”

On March 2, 1861, after seven states had seceded and two days before Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, Sen. James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin proposed a constitutional amendment that said, “No State or any part thereof, heretofore admitted or hereafter admitted into the Union, shall have the power to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the United States.”

Several months earlier, Reps. Daniel E. Sickles of New York, Thomas B. Florence of Pennsylvania and Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit secession. Here’s my no-brainer question: Would there have been any point to offering these amendments if secession were already unconstitutional?

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Seeing No Evil

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If you want to understand why President Obama was reelected despite a largely unsuccessful presidency and almost unprecedentedly high and continuous unemployment, just look at the Cuban-American vote.

In fact, if you want to understand America today — specifically, why it is in decline — just look at the Cuban-American vote.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, “The president captured 48% of the Cuban-American vote in Florida — a record high for a Democrat.”

Democratic presidential nominees went from 25 percent of the Cuban-American vote in 2000, to 29 percent in 2004, to 35 percent in 2008, to 48 percent in 2012.

We obviously have a dramatic trend here.

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Forget Spain, Now Italy Seen As Needing Bailout

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Even as markets have been focused on a potential bailout for Spain, analysts say Italy, which is heading for a protracted recession, may also need aid in 2013.

Although Mario Monti’s technocrat government forecasts the Italian economy will decline only marginally in 2013, analysts at Citi predict a steeper contraction of 1.4 percent, after a 2.3 percent fall this year. Meanwhile, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development lowered its 2013 estimate for Italy on Tuesday to a one percent contraction.

On top of the economic weakness is growing political uncertainty. Monti’s term ends next year and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has lashed out at the government’s austerity measures, has hinted he may run for election again.

“We still see as our baseline scenario that Italy will likely be forced to ask for an international bailout at some point in 2013,” said Citi Analyst Giada Giani in a report on the country.

“Italian economic fundamentals have not really improved, despite some improvement in market conditions. The negative feedbacks from fiscal austerity on growth have been severe, as the ability of the private sector to absorb fiscal tightening by lowering its saving rate is limited.”

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Gennifer Flowers: Bill Clinton Had Affair Go Public for Name Recognition, Wanted More as Late as 2005

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More than two decades after she became a household name for alleging she had a 12-year affair with Bill Clinton, Gennifer Flowers has made yet more shocking claims about the former president.

Flowers, who enjoyed a lucrative modelling and acting career as well as top book sales following her announcement in 1992, has claimed that Clinton called her as recently as 2005, begging to see her. Speaking with WGNO, Flowers, 62, said was at home alone in Louisiana following her divorce when her phone rang.

‘I picked up the phone and it was him,’ she told host Susan Roesgen. ‘And he wanted to come by my house and talk to me. I was taken aback; that was the last thing I expected.’ She added that, even when she refused to allow him to visit, he persisted.

‘I said, “No you can’t come over here”,’ she continued. ‘He said, “I’ll put on a hoodie and I’ll jog up there” and I said, “No, I want you to leave me alone”. And that was that.’ Former president Clinton has yet to respond to a request for comment from MailOnline over the claims.

The call allegedly came decades after Flowers claimed they had a years-long affair while Clinton was governor of Arkansas. He later claimed they only ever had one sexual encounter in the 1970s.

But in another bombshell on WGNO, Flowers claimed Clinton had in fact discussed revealing the affair in the 1990s as he was struggling to achieve the recognition he needed to win the presidency. ‘I made him a household name over night,’ she told WGNO. ‘We had had that discussion. He said, “My problem right now is that no one knows who I am. I need that name recognition”. ‘He went on to talk about the other candidates and the advantages they had… When my story came out, he was a household name.’

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AIDS Activists Arrested After Protesting Speaker Boehner’s Office in the Nude

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Three women AIDS activists saying they wanted to highlight the ‘naked truth’ about potential spending cuts in HIV programs were arrested Tuesday after taking their clothes off in the lobby of House Speaker John Boehner’s office.

The trio had the words ‘AIDS cuts kill’ painted on their bodies and had linked arms with four men who also disrobed as part of the protest.

The protest came as health officials revealed that AIDS is spreading to a new generation of young men who are having risky sex and ignoring the painful lessons learned during initial outbreak of the disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population – young men who are gay or bisexual.

The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males.

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Democrat Operatives Launch Class-Warfare Website

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A George Soros-funded radical think tank with close ties to the Democratic Party has launched a new website urging politicians and activists to wage class warfare while hailing what it calls a new era in politics – the use of class warfare to win elections.

WageClassWar.org was launched last week by the Campaign for America’s Future, or CAF. CAF’s co-director, Robert Borosage, explained the need for such a website.

“America’s growing diversity and its increasingly socially liberal attitudes played a big role in this election. But looking back, we are likely to see this as the first of the class warfare elections of our new Gilded Age of extreme inequality,” he wrote in a statement.

“More and more of our elections going forward will feature class warfare – only this time with the middle class fighting back. And candidates are going to have to be clear about which side they are on,” he wrote.

Continued Borosage: “In 2012, candidates who supported the economic interests of the many over the few won their elections. Populism was the voice, but economic opportunity was the message. The pundits may wring their hands, but in the future it won’t be values voters, angry white men or soccer moms that win elections. It will be class war.”

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Jill Kelly Hits Back, Demands Investigation Into Leaks

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A Tampa socialite embroiled in the scandal that cost CIA Director David Petraeus his job fought back Tuesday after more than two weeks of silence as her attorneys released emails, telephone recordings and other material that they say show she never tried to exploit her friendship with Petraeus.

Jill Kelley, through her attorneys, went on the attack against a New York businessman who accused her of incompetence in her work trying to set up a deal he was negotiating with South Korean companies; an attorney who accused her of name-dropping and of being a social climber; and the FBI agent who first leaked her name in connection with the Petraeus scandal.

Kelley, 37, became the focus of national media attention earlier this month after it was revealed that she was the recipient of anonymous emails from Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ biographer and mistress.

Broadwell allegedly told Kelley she should stay away from the former general and Gen. John Allen, who had replaced Petraeus as leader of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Petraeus and Allen had become friends with Kelley and her husband, Scott Kelley, a noted cancer surgeon, when the generals served at U.S. Central Command, which is headquartered at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base. Kelley became an unofficial social ambassador for the base, hosting numerous parties for the officers.

The scandal this week cost Kelley her appointment as an honorary consul for the South Korean government, which she had gotten because of her friendship with Petraeus. The Koreans said she had misused the title in her personal business dealings.

Kelley’s attorneys sent a cease-and-desist letter to New York businessman Adam Victor; a complaint to the Florida bar against Tampa attorney Barry Cohen, and a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office demanding that it investigate to find out who in the FBI leaked her name to the news media. Representatives of attorney Abbe Lowell emailed copies of the letters to The Associated Press.

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Video: Shock-Jock Glenn Beck Puts Obama’s Image in … Pee Pee

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On Monday, TheBlaze alerted readers to a new painting that depicts Barack Obama as Jesus Christ crucified, adorned with a crown of thorns. The work, entitled “Truth,” is part of a larger exhibit at the Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery in Boston titled “Artists on the Stump – the Road to the White House 2012.” This, of course, is not the first controversial rendition that has been labeled “artwork,” nor is it the first time President Obama has been likened to Christ, or in general, God.

Now, the creator of “Truth,” Michael D’Antuono, said that his “First Amendment rights should override someone’s hurt feelings” and that “we should celebrate the fact that we live in a country where we are given the freedom to express ourselves.”

After receiving roughly 4,000 angry emails over the painting, D’Antuono also said he respects “their right to express themselves” and hopes they will afford him the same.

With this in mind, Glenn Beck chose to “express himself,” during his Tuesday evening broadcast by featuring a piece of artwork of his own creation.

Watch the clip, sure to make a splash, via TheBlaze TV below:

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Treaty Threatens U.S. Sovereignty

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WASHINGTON – Former Sen. Rick Santorum, a former GOP presidential candidate and the father of a handicapped child, joined Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in denouncing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, saying it would open a “Pandora’s box” of legal interpretations resulting in a “direct assault on us and our families.”

In a press conference on Capitol Hill Monday, both Santorum and Lee said Articles 4 and 7 of the convention, which reference the rights of disabled children, represent a threat to both national sovereignty and the rights of families to make decisions on how to raise their own children.

“Our concerns with this convention have nothing to do with a lack of concern with the rights of persons with disabilities,” said Lee. “They have everything to do with protecting national sovereignty, protecting the interests of parents … and the interests of families.”

Article 4 of the convention compels member states to embrace “economic, cultural and social rights” that are rooted in the concept that government creates rights, as contrasted with the uniquely American view that rights are inalienable and God-given.

This is, Lee explains, “unknown in our legal system” as it presupposes that the state, not God, is the origin, of our rights.

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Report: US States Are Less Free Than Canadian Provinces

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photo credit: abdallahh

A new study on economic freedom in North America has concluded that some American states are less free than the provinces of our northern neighbor Canada.

“Canadian provinces now lead US states in average economic freedom, with the provincial average at 6.8 compared to 6.7 out of 10 for US states,” claims the new study by the Fraser Institute.

Topping the list of the most economically free subdivisions of North American countries is the Canadian province of Alberta, followed by Delaware, Saskatchewan, Texas and Nevada.

On average, American states lose to Canadian provinces in a number of categories, including regulation of credit, regulation of business, and legal system and property rights. While the average of economically free regions is higher in Canada, it is worth noting they have both the most free state, Alberta, and the least free state, Prince Edward Island, which is located off the coast of Nova Scotia.

The Freedom Index for North America was calculated using ten components in three basic areas: size of government, takings and discriminatory taxation, and labor market freedom. The number one issue affecting U.S. states’ freedom is the amount of government spending.

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