Congress risks taking the economy over a “massive fiscal cliff,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned lawmakers on Wednesday.

In remarks that hit Wall Street stock prices, the central bank boss suggested the economy could hit a serious roadblock if Congress allows the Bush tax rates and a payroll tax cut to expire and $1.2 trillion in spending cuts to be implemented simultaneously in January.

“Under current law, on Jan. 1, 2013, there’s going to be a massive fiscal cliff of large spending cuts and tax increases,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. “I hope that Congress will look at that and figure out ways to achieve the same long-run fiscal improvement without having it all happen at one date.
“All those things are hitting on the same day, basically. It’s quite a big event.”

The tax hikes and spending cuts could knock GDP growth in 2013 down from 2.6 percent to 1 percent, according to Andrew Fieldhouse, a federal budget policy analyst with the liberal Economic Policy Institute .

Read More at The Hill By Peter Schroeder, The Hill

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Wednesday he opposed Senate Republicans’ effort that critics say would limit insurance coverage of birth control, then reversed himself quickly in a second interview saying he misunderstood the question.

Romney told Ohio News Network during an interview that he opposed a measure by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., that was scheduled for a vote Thursday. “I’m not for the bill,” Romney said before urging the interviewer to move on.

Romney later said he didn’t understand the question.

“Of course I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception so I was simply — misunderstood the question and of course I support the Blunt amendment,” Romney later told Howie Carr’s radio program in Boston, noting that Blunt is his campaign’s point man in the Senate.

Just hours earlier, ONN reporter Jim Heath asked Romney about rival Rick Santorum and the cultural debate happening in the campaign and the legislation proposed by Blunt and co-sponsored by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

Read More at OfficialWire By Philip Elliot, OfficialWire

Hollywood is aghast at the success of “Act of Valor,” which came in first place over the weekend with $24.5 million. The reviews for the film have been uniformly terrible – and more than that, the reviews have either stated or implied that the film is propaganda. Try this critique on for size:

In case you missed it, they called the film “straight-up propaganda.” And that’s not uncommon. Dax Shepherd, star of “Parenthood” (NBC), wrote on Twitter, “Saw ‘Triumph of the Will’ tonight, oh wait, I mean ‘Act of Valor’ great action.” Barry Falls of NinerOnline suggested that the film was “nothing more than a propaganda piece instead of a realistic insight into SEALs’ lives.” Christian Toto has summed up the reviews here. And the general consensus from the left seems to be that this is “Battleship Potemkin” stuff.

Odd that this should be the left’s reaction – and typical, as Toto points out, since the Hollywood left despises openly positive portrayals of the military. But there’s something else at work here: Hollywood and the movie critics want to put the subtle word out that if you make a pro-military film, you will be slandered as a Nazi-esque propagandist.

This is how the Hollywood blacklist works. “Act of Valor” opened huge over the weekend, confounding all expectations – it’s already in the black. But will the directors, Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh, get the invites to the posh clubs? Will they get multi-movie deals from the studios? They didn’t require a huge budget to make a huge action flick, but will they be placed in rarefied Michael Bay territory?

Of course not. They will be blacklisted, the same way Mel Gibson was after “The Passion of the Christ,” but long before his insane drunken ranting. They will be characterized as extremists, as wackos interested only in recruiting new “killing machines.” Nobody calls the creators of “Green Zone” propagandists on behalf of the anti-Iraq War movement; but make a pro-military movie, and you are portrayed as a pariah.

Read More at Big Hollywood By Ben Shapiro, Big Hollywood

Watching Congressman Darrell Issa, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Senator Charles Grassley, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee go up against Eric Holder’s Justice Department is like watching Golding’s Piggy try to reason with Jack’s bloodthirsty gang of sow-worshipping killers.

But instead of a conch shell, the two men are writing letters — lots of letters demanding the most corrupt Attorney General in history answer for the murders of two federal agents and hundreds of Mexican civilians.

The latest Issa/Grassley inquisition, a letter sent to AG Holder on February 27, focuses on a third Texas straw purchaser with ties to the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.

Records indicate that ATF opened a case against Manuel Barba in June 2010,[6] approximately two months before he took possession on August 20, 2010, of the rifle which was later trafficked to Mexico and also used in the murder of Agent Zapata.[7]

Additionally, the documents show that ATF had indications in October 2010 that Barba was obliterating serial numbers on weapons, the possession of which would have been a prosecutable offense.[8]

Read More at American Thinker By M. Catharine Evans, American Thinker

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), recently adopted by Congress and signed into law by Barack Obama, contains language that has raised substantial Constitutional questions by civil libertarians on both the political right and on the political left. The bulk of the lengthy legislation deals with the routine authorization for military spending by the Pentagon, including items such as military pay, veterans’ benefits, weapons procurement, etc. Such legislation must be passed on a regular basis if the United States military is to continue to operate.

However, in the U. S. Senate version of the legislation, S.1867, there are sections dealing with the detaining of people suspected of being involved with terrorist organizations or any groups engaging in, or planning, hostile actions against the United States. These suspects can be arrested by American military forces and detained indefinitely, without formal charges being filed, and without trial, until the “hostilities” end. The term hostilities refers to the general war on terror, not to specific military actions, such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq. Therefore, there is no end in sight to the possible period of detention. This is the version that was ultimately passed by the full Congress.

The question is, does the law allow members of the United States armed forces to detain American citizens, including those arrested in the United States, without granting them due process? The language in the bill is unclear, at best. In section 1031, the first paragraph states:

“(a) IN GENERAL.—Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (Public Law 107–40) includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons (as defined in subsection (b)) pending disposition under the law of war.”

The legislation then provides a definition of the individuals covered by the legislation:

“(b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”

The legislation goes on to provide various options for dealing with the individuals arrested pursuant to the authority provided to the President. It states:

“(c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:

(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111–84)).

(3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.

(4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.”

The next section of the law is 1032, and it requires the military to detain certain individuals that fall under the definition of the act. Critics point out that the language is so broad that American citizens can fall under the provisions of the act, and can be detained indefinitely, without the Constitutional protections provided to them under the 5th and 6th Amendments to the U. S. Constitution. In other words, there would be no due process, no right to a speedy trial, no right of habeas corpus, and no right to a trial by jury.

However, supporters of the law, including some members of Congress, point to additional language in the same section of the law that they say protects the Constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. The specific provisions state:

“(b) APPLICABILITY TO UNITED STATES CITIZENS AND LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—

(1) UNITED STATES CITIZENS.—The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.

(2) LAWFUL RESIDENT ALIENS.—The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.”

The problem is that when the language is carefully read, it becomes clear that this does not exempt U.S. citizens from being detained without due process, but only says that it is not required under the previously cited provisions. The decision of whether an American citizen can be detained indefinitely, without being formally charged, or tried, is, therefore, left in the hands of one person, the President of the United States.

Giving the President of the United States, or anyone else, this kind of authority over American citizens was something that the framers of the U. S. Constitution, and, specifically, the Bill of Rights, were trying to prohibit. Yet it appears that this law is doing what the founders of our country feared. One of the problems is that it has been done before. U.S. citizens of Japanese descent were interred by the U.S. government after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The detention was the result of Executive Orders issued by then President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There were numerous challenges in the courts to the detention orders, and several cases reached the U.S. Supreme Court, including Yasui v. United States, 320 U.S. 115 (1943), Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943), Ex parte Endo, or Ex parte Mitsuye Endo, 323 U.S. 283 (1944), and Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944). In all of these decisions, the court upheld the right of the government to place curfews on Japanese Americans, to exclude them from certain areas, and to place them in internment camps. These decisions were later considered a mistake, and, in the 1980’s, when evidence was uncovered that the government had been aware that there was no real threat, but withheld that information from the courts, the decisions were overturned.

The latest case involving the detention of U.S. citizens by the military is Hamdi v Rumsfield 542 U.S. 547 (2004). Yaser Isam Hamdi was born in the United States, and, then, his family moved to Saudi Arabia. He was captured in Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion in 2001 and held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as an enemy combatant. He challenged this status in court, and, in a plurality decision, the Supreme Court Justices ruled that U.S. citizens, even when arrested in foreign countries, and designated as enemy combatants, must be provided with an opportunity to have the legality of their detention decided in a civilian court.

This case would appear to settle this issue, but Congress has used language in NDAA that appears to be an attempt to circumvent this ruling. In addition, Congress has conferred the power to order long term detentions of U.S. citizens on an occupant of the White House that has repeatedly expressed his willingness to ignore the Congress, the courts, and even the U. S. Constitution itself. This establishes a dangerous situation for Americans.

The new law also appears to repeal, or at least modify, the Posse Comitatus Act, that was passed in 1878 at the end of post Civil War reconstruction. That law is designated as 18 USC 1385, and it prohibits the states of the union, and local governments, from using members of the U.S. Army for law enforcement purposes. It was later amended to include
the Air Force, and the Marines, and the Navy are under the same prohibitions, by order of the U. S. Department of Defense. If the critics of NDAA are correct, and members of the United States military can make arrests of U.S. citizens in the United States, then it appears that the intent of the Posse Comitatus law is negated.

In conclusion, the language in the bill appears to be deliberately vague and confusing, and many members of Congress seem to be unaware of what they were actually voting for. However, that does not lessen the impact of a law that gives the President extraordinary powers to violate the Constitutional rights of American citizens. If Congress can’t be
convinced to amend the law to remove those provisions, then the courts must be asked to declare the provisions unconstitutional.

This post originally appeared on Usjf.net and has been reprinted with permission.