Friday, July 1, 2011
Opposite Forms of Freedom on the Fourth
Does the welfare-warfare state way of life constitute genuine freedom? Permit me to answer that question with the words of the great German thinker Johann von Goethe: "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
Friday, July 1, 2011
Opposite Forms of Freedom on the Fourth
by Jacob G. Hornberger
I'd like to share two points about the Fourth of July that I believe are important:
First, the people who signed the Declaration of Independence were not American citizens, as is commonly believed. The people who took up arms against the British government were not fighting a foreign power. The revolutionaries were British citizens. They took up arms against their own government. They were shooting the troops rather than supporting them.
Why did they do that? Because they believed that their government was engaged in terrible wrongdoing. That wrongdoing is specified within the Declaration. They believed that when people's own government is engaged in wrongdoing and persists in that wrongdoing, it is up the citizenry to take a stand against it.
There are undoubtedly those who consider the rebels to have been traitors people who refuse to support their own government, especially in time of crisis and war. British government officials certainly considered George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others who joined the Revolution to be criminals and traitors.
Not me. I consider the signers of the Declaration to have been the real patriots. It's not easy to take a public stand against the wrongdoing of one's own government.
For one thing, the dissidents must put up with all the nasty things that the good, little citizens hurl at them -- the citizens who have the mindset of "my government, never wrong, especially in crisis and war."
For another, there is the threat of retaliation from the government itself. We often forget that if Washington, Jefferson, and the others had lost, they would have been hanged as common criminals and traitors by British government officials, to the applause of all the good, little citizens who sided with their government in the conflict.
In fact, the easiest thing in the world -- the thing that takes no courage at all -- is to take the side of the government in times of crisis and war. What takes courage is to stand against it during such times. My favorite example of such courage is the story of the White Rose, where German young people had the courage to stand against their own government in the middle of World War II -- and paid for it with their lives at the hands of their own government -- for "treason."
Second, the "freedom" that Americans today celebrate is opposite to the freedom that our American ancestors celebrated when they celebrated Independence Day every year. The reason I put the word in quotations is because I personally don't consider it to be genuine freedom, but the fact is that most Americans today do.
Today, Americans define freedom as the extent to which the government is taking care of them, providing for them, and keeping them safe and secure from the likes of drug lords, terrorists, illegal aliens, and communists.
Consider the welfare state: Government provides people with retirement (Social Security), health care (Medicare and Medicaid), education (public schooling and education grants), farm subsidies, community grants, and many other programs that entail the government's use of force to take money from whom it belongs in order to give it to people to whom it does not belong.
Consider the warfare state: 700-1000 military bases in some 130 countries, invasions, wars of aggression, undeclared wars, bombings, occupations, sanctions, embargoes, kidnapping, rendition, assassination, kangaroo tribunals, and the like. In a word, empire.
Consider the drug war, whereby the government wields the power to incarcerate people for ingesting non-approved substances, a 4-decade war that continues to wreak death, destruction, and corruption.
Consider the regulated society, in which governments at all levels regulate the most minute aspects of people's lives, especially within the context of the so-called war on terrorism.
Consider the Federal Reserve and paper money, which involve a never-ending inflationary debasement of the value of people's money in order to finance ever-burgeoning welfare-warfare state spending and debt.
Consider the income tax and the IRS, which suck money out of the pockets of those who have earned it in order to give it to those who haven't earned it.
All this is considered "freedom" by modern-day Americans.
Not so with our American ancestors. Consider that for more than 100 years, they chose to live without income taxation, an IRS, a Federal Reserve, paper money, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, farm subsidies, public (i.e., government) schooling, and other such socialistic programs.
No drug war for our ancestors. They believed that genuine freedom encompassed the right to ingest whatever one wants.
Also, for most of the first century of our nation's existence our ancestors lived without militarism, a huge standing army, wars of aggression (the Mexican War being a notable exception), occupations, foreign military bases, a military industrial complex, kidnappings, torture, and assassination. In a word, they chose a republic, as compared to an empire.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention that our Americans ancestors also lived without immigration controls and gun control.
Why did they reject the things that present-day Americans celebrate as "freedom"? Because they believed that all the things that present-day Americans have brought into existence with their welfare state and warfare state were opposite to freedom. Since they wanted to be free, they chose not to adopt such programs when they founded the country.
Does the welfare-warfare state way of life constitute genuine freedom? Permit me to answer that question with the words of the great German thinker Johann von Goethe: "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-07-01.asp
Joyeux Anniversaire Frédéric!
Joyeux Anniversaire Frédéric!
July 1, 2011 by Justin Ptak
Today (or some say yesterday or the day before) is the 209th birthday of Frederic Bastiat, one of the great champions of freedom and inspiration to countless economists, academics, and advocates of liberty. He was a 19th century French political economist who wrote brilliant, and concise works on law, commerce, and liberty.
Economic Harmonies
The Law
Economic Sophisms
And, we should not forget his spiritual heir, who he declared on his deathbed, Gustave de Molinari.
Treasury Secretary/Tax-cheat Timothy Geithner informs Obama he may resign after debt negotiation deal
 | Treasury Secretary/Tax-cheat Timothy Geithner informs Obama he may resign after debt negotiation dealScotty Starnes | July 1, 2011 at 11:50 AM | Tags: economics, President Obama, Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, unemployment | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-5xT |
Now why would the guy who sat and watched the biggest addition of debt in U.S. history pile up want to quit?
From WaPo:
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, an architect of the Obama administration's economic strategy, has told the president that he may seek as soon as this summer to resign, according to people familiar with the matter.
Economic strategy? Spending, through redistribution of wealth, is the only strategy these Keynesian worshippers understand.
Geithner's departure would mark the loss of Obama's longest-serving economic adviser at a time when the recovery has slowed and the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high.
Geithner is the only original member of Obama's failed economic team. The same team that predicted below 8% unemployment if Obama's $830 billion stimulus was passed. America is still waiting for this "recovery" that never happened.
Geithner has told the White House he will wait until the conclusion of talks with Congress over the nation's debt before deciding whether to leave, according to the people familiar with the matter.
An administration official said Geithner recognizes the conclusion of these negotiations could provide a "window" for him to leave. Another official at the Treasury Department said Geithner doesn't plan to make any decisions while he is focused on striking a deal with lawmakers to reduce the deficit and raise the federal limit on borrowing, which he has said must happen by Aug. 2 to avert a catastrophic default.
These two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing Geithner's private deliberations.
When asked about his career plans late Thursday, Geithner said at a conference in Chicago that "I'm going to be doing this for the foreseeable future."
But he acknowledged that family concerns were weighing on him. Geithner said his family was moving back to New York, where his son would finish high school. Geithner said he would commute to Washington.
"I've never had a real job," Geithner told his interviewer, former president Bill Clinton. "I've only worked in public service. I live for this work."
This is the problem with many that Obama has selected to ruin the economy. Like Obama, most have no real world experience and have only been parasite upon the taxpayers.
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Afghanistan: What Defeat Looks Like
Afghanistan: What Defeat Looks Like
It's the beginning of the end
by Justin Raimondo, July 01, 2011
Critics of the war in Afghanistan are fond of asking: "What would victory look like? How will we know when we've won?" In view of the latest events in that war-torn country, it's fair to stand that question on its head and ask: What would defeat look like?
It looks like this: as Afghan government officials gather in Kabul's fanciest hotel, the place where foreign journalists and other high mucka-mucks take up residence when in the capital, a group of Taliban fighters storms the lobby, kills at least 12 civilians and police officers, and sends Afghan officials scurrying for their lives. A five-hour gun battle ensues, which is ended only when NATO forces launch a helicopter attack on the assailants, strafing the hotel from the air. The Telegraph describes the scene:
"Political governors, ministerial advisers and senior police officers described how they hid from the fighting. … The militants passed Maulawi Mohammadullah Orsadi, who heads the provincial council of Takhar, as he chatted with a senior judge in the hotel's forecourt, forcing him to do a double take as he spotted their guns and grenades.
"'I counted at least eight rocket-propelled grenade rounds strapped to the back of one of them and they were in traditional clothes,' he said. 'As soon they passed us they began firing on the guards. The judge ran towards the lobby but we stayed and he was shot dead.'
"Mr Orsadi survived by diving into a ditch and staying there for five hours.
All over the hotel, dignitaries, who had come to the capital to discuss the future of Afghanistan's security, locked themselves in lavatories or hid under beds as the killing began."
After ten years of fighting, of "nation-building," of telling ourselves that "progress" is being made – and racking up costs calculated in the trillions – we can't even ensure the security of Afghan government officials in their own "capital city." If that doesn't constitute a massive defeat, then I don't know what does.
Even the smooth-talking President Obama, an expert at depicting the unpalatable as perfectly normal, seemed a bit shaken by news of the humiliating attack:
"Despite claiming that the Afghan capital was 'much safer than it was,' Mr Obama said he expected attacks such as the one on the Intercontinental Hotel to continue for 'some time.' 'Keep in mind, the drawdown has not begun, so we understand that Afghanistan is a dangerous place, and the Taliban is still active and there will be events like this on occasion,' Mr Obama said."
"A lot safer than it was" – when?
Like the Russian commissars of yesteryear, the Obama administration has announced a minuscule and essentially meaningless "withdrawal" of some troops which now, however, seems rather iffy. In spite of all the happy talk about the Afghans making the "transition" to "self-determination," the truth is that, eventually – again, just like their Russian predecessors – the Americans will be forced to acknowledge defeat.
How long will that take? The Russians didn't hightail it out of there until their own system began to collapse at home: they, too, spent a decade fighting fierce Afghan resistance to their occupation, and in the end, as they snuck away, a Soviet commander told a Western reporter:
"We came here with a very honorable task, and with open hearts. We are leaving with a sense of not having accomplished our mission to the end."
An understatement, to say the least: within a few months, the Soviet-installed Marxist regime of "President" Mohammed Najibullah had collapsed, and Kabul was in rebel hands.
It is worth recalling that, as the Red Army was being beaten on the battlefield, the Intercontinental Hotel – the hub of foreign journalists and Afghan government officials – was considered relatively safe, or at least safe enough for the Russians to have convened there a session of the "Afro-Asian Peoples Solidarity Organization" whose 41 delegates were sent fleeing by a rebel rocket attack.
That a similar propaganda exercise – an Afghan government conference on making the "transition" from dependence on the US to local control – was being staged by the Americans, some thirty years later, with similar results, underscores our stubborn refusal to learn from history. "We stand not for empire," intoned Obama in his recent Afghanistan speech, "but for self-determination." Somehow, the Afghans don't see it that way.
Our empire, like that of the Soviets, is on the way out, inevitably receding before the tides of nationalism and economic decline on the home front. Yet still we persist in nurturing the illusion that we're in control, that we can manage the scope of the unfolding disaster and delay indefinitely the day when, like this Soviet official, we'll be forced to admit defeat:
"'It's a defeat, no question about it,' an aide in the Communist Party's Central Committee told an American friend this week. 'We had your experience in Vietnam right before our eyes, and we still went in like fools. The only thing we've been able to avoid is having to evacuate the last people from our Embassy in Kabul on helicopter skids.'"
We had the Russian experience right before our eyes, as well as our own bitter memories of the Vietnam disaster, and yet we still went in like even bigger fools. Not only did we go in, but we stayed in long after the last remnants of al-Qaeda had fled and attempted to set up a puppet government, confident we would succeed where the Soviets failed. Yet "President" Hamid Karzai – or whoever is in office when Kabul falls – will share Najibullah's fate, of that we can be sure.
As to whether our imperial delusions will implode in the same way the Russians' did – and with the same rapidity – remains to be seen. However, I suspect – or, rather, fear – we'll know soon enough.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/06/30/afghanistan-what-defeat-looks-like/
Obama Assures America's Slavery To Rothschild's Banking System: By Printing $110 Billion New USD Per Month And Injects It Into The Commodities Market.
The liberal media have become President Obama's megaphone -- eagerly applauding his every move and repeating his talking points on everything from ObamaCare to his massive spending plans to government takeovers to the rest of statist proclivities. Beyond parroting the White House line on every national and international issue and event, the liberal [...]
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I Want This Bumpersticker!
 | I Want This Bumpersticker!Eowyn | July 1, 2011 at 9:49 am | Tags: Herman Cain 2012 | Categories: 2012 Election | URL: http://wp.me/pKuKY-7SQ |
[Source]
H/t beloved fellow Dave!
~Eowyn
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Podcast re the debt ceiling w/ Marshall Auerback
Posted this morning at Electric Politics, a podcast on the debt
ceiling with progressive economist Marshall Auerback. Is the debt
ceiling law unconstitutional? What is the real meaning of U.S. debt?
What would happen if the U.S. were, for the first time ever, to
default? Here are some answers.
ceiling with progressive economist Marshall Auerback. Is the debt
ceiling law unconstitutional? What is the real meaning of U.S. debt?
What would happen if the U.S. were, for the first time ever, to
default? Here are some answers.
If you like the podcast please pass along the link.
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2011/07/the_wild_dollar.html
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God
The Liberal half asses of Ass wholes want the word 'God' taken off,
and out, of everything
it's being used for...
and out, of everything
it's being used for...
What about the 'God' they trust in, on their money? When does that God
come off?
That 'God', is a generic God. It should say; "In Almighty God We
Trust"...
There is only one of those. All others are, at most, Omniscient. None
Omnipotent.
All Mighty/Omniscient Allah..
verses
Almighty/Omnipotent HaShem....
Will the real Creator God please stand up....?
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The Isolationist Red Herring
The Isolationist Red Herring
by Sheldon Richman, July 1, 2011
The media have picked up a new buzzword: "isolationist." They jumped on it after Sen. John McCain, who seems to want the United States to be at war everywhere, said after the last Republican presidential debate, "I do want to send a message, and that is that we cannot move into an isolationist party." He was soon joined by his fellow advocate of empire, Sen. Lindsey Graham, who told his party's critics of President Obama's Libyan intervention to "shut up."
Is the GOP going isolationist? Presidential aspirant Jon Huntsman calls for an "aggressive drawdown" from Afghanistan. Mitt Romney wants the troops out "as soon as possible." That brought rebukes from rivals Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann. Speaking at the establishment Council on Foreign Relations, Pawlenty accused some Republicans -- presumably Huntsman and Romney -- of "trying to out-bid the Democrats in appealing to isolationist sentiments," while Bachmann said the U.S. government must "finish the job" in Afghanistan.
Pawlenty and Bachmann need not worry. There is no "danger" that Huntsman and Romney will fall into "isolationism." Calling for bringing the troops home "as soon as possible" is a meaningless statement, and an aggressive drawdown from Afghanistan, when the public is sick of America's longest war, says nothing about foreign policy in general.
On the other hand, another candidate in the race, Rep. Ron Paul, does want an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and everywhere else the U.S. government maintains troops, including Europe, Japan, and South Korea. He wants the thousand or so U.S. military installations scattered around the world closed.
But is that isolationism?
No, it is not. Why would anyone use that term to describe a program of peace and free trade with the rest of the world? Where's the isolation? There have indeed been political figures who wished to create a Fortress America, a program that would have included economic self-sufficiency. That is properly called "isolationism."
But a foreign policy of trade with the world and military nonintervention is as far from isolationism as one could get.
It is telling that the critics of "isolationism" equate engagement in the larger world with invasions, occupations, bombings, drone missile attacks, assassinations, black-site prisons, torture, covert operations, and all the rest of the malign things associated with the so-called war on terror. For them the choice is between empire and isolation.
How absurd! Were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson isolationists when they advised the United States to have commercial relations with all countries and political ties with none, and that it stay clear of foreign quarrels? Was John Quincy Adams an isolationist when he said that America "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own"?
What those who attack "isolationism" don't want the public to know is that Washington, Jefferson, and Adams favored a foreign policy of nonintervention because it is best suited to a constitutional republic. As we have seen in recent years, keeping government power in check is impossible when it is free to roam the world imposing its notion of order -- and always in a way that turns a profit for special interests. As their counterpart in Great Britain, the free trader and pacifist Richard Cobden, noted, freedom cannot flourish in an empire.
Or as James Madison put it, "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."
But aren't we in danger? If so, it is because of a half-century of U.S. military and political intervention.
So let's hear no more about isolationism. But if the word must be used, let it be used as the classical liberal William Graham Sumner used it:
"Our ancestors all came here to isolate themselves from the social burdens and inherited errors of the old world.... When the others are crushed under the burden of militarism, who would not be isolated in peace and industry? When the others are all struggling under debt and taxes, who would not be isolated in the enjoyment of his own earnings for the benefit of his own family?"
http://www.fff.org/comment/com1107a.asp
Why Legalize Now?
Why Legalize Now?
Friday, July 01, 2011
by Mark Thornton
[An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by the author, is available for download.]
Suddenly the world is abuzz with talk about legalizing marijuana and other drugs. Political candidates, politicians, former presidents, interest groups, and even the Global Commission on Drug Policy are all calling for drug-policy reform. Given that we are in a worldwide economic and fiscal crisis, why is everyone interested in drug policy? Have we all suddenly regained our senses and realized that prohibition is irrational?
No, the more important reason for the interest in this issue is economic sense. Drug prohibition is a burden on taxpayers. It is a burden on government budgets. It is a burden on the criminal-justice system. It is a burden on the healthcare system. The economic crisis has intensified the pain from all these burdens. Legalization reduces or eliminates all of these burdens. It should be no surprise that alcohol prohibition was repealed at the deepest depths of the Great Depression.
Two Republican presidential candidates, former governor Gary Johnson and Congressman Ron Paul, support legalization. Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced legislation that would allow the states to legalize marijuana without federal interference. Former president Jimmy Carter recently published an editorial in the New York Times calling for an end of the global war on drugs, a position he has held since he was president.
The organization LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, has recently released a report entitled "Ending the Drug War: A Dream Deferred" on the 40th anniversary of the War on Drugs. They are critical of the war and point out that President Obama is actually making things worse. Finally, and maybe most importantly, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has issued a report that declares the war on drugs a failure and provides recommendations for reform.
The economic crisis is speeding up the realization that the war on drugs has failed and cannot be won. Taxpayers have long been slow to recognize the economic burden of drug prohibition. They have been told for decades that we only need to spend a little more and remove a few more constitutional protections of our rights to win the war against drugs. With decades of broken promises, busted budgets with trillion-dollar holes, and a teetering economy in crisis, more and more people are saying no to the war on drugs.
Drug prohibition is the single biggest burden on the criminal-justice budget. It is also a large burden for more than a dozen budgets within the federal government, and it is a growing burden on state and local budgets. The incarceration of hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders often leads to the breakup of families and the loss of breadwinners, placing additional burdens on social services.
The criminal-justice system is overwhelmed, and the prisons are filled far beyond capacity. As a result, violent criminals are receiving early release from their sentences. Other measures of crime and violence are also disturbing. Street gangs use the illegal-drug business to finance and expand their activities. It has been estimated that the United States now has nearly 800,000 gang members. Organized crime continues to grow in numbers and sophistication -- as well as the level of violence. The Mexican Army has replaced local police along the border in order to restore order and reduce the more than 10,000 prohibition-related murders last year. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the war on drugs is undermining civilization.
People are also realizing that fighting the war on drugs (i.e., prohibition) only makes social problems worse. The number of drug-related emergency-room visits in the United States now exceeds 2 million per year for illegal drugs and nonmedical use of prescription drugs. The progression of drug use from marijuana to cocaine, heroin, and crystal meth is clearly negative for health; and that progression is increasingly and correctly seen to be the result of prohibition, not addiction.
As I demonstrated, the failure of California's Proposition 19 legalizing marijuana should not be seen as a discouraging sign. Rather, it should be seen as a sign of things to come. All over the world, drug prohibition and its repeal or reform is now a matter of debate. In many areas of the world, the drug war has been rolled back.
Portugal is a good case in point. They were not winning the war; they were losing it. They were also losing the more general war for prosperity. In desperation, they de facto legalized all drugs. The result was not rampant, widespread drug abuse. Drug use and addiction actually declined, as did violence and disease.
- Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC, libertarian think tank.
The results from repeal were both immediate and amazing. Taverns, restaurants, breweries, distilleries, and wineries reopened for business. Jobs were suddenly and noticeably available for the first time in years. The unemployment rate plunged from its historic high level of 25 percent. Crime and corruption sank, with the murder rate falling to its pre-Prohibition level in a manner of a few years. For politicians and government employees, repeal meant a new source of tax revenue and an end to budget cuts. Tax revolts, which had sprung up all across the country in opposition to government, sadly faded away. The people rejoiced that "Happy Days Are Here Again."
A similar opportunity lies in our future as the economic crisis continues to widen and worsen. We need to continue to learn and teach the real lessons of prohibition, some of which can be found in this free book. To unmask the true nature of government control and to demonstrate the superiority of individualism within a classical-liberal environment, we must make ending the war on drugs a priority.
Mark Thornton is a senior resident fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, and is the book review editor for the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. He is the author of The Economics of Prohibition, coauthor of Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War, and the editor of The Quotable Mises, The Bastiat Collection, and An Essay on Economic Theory.
http://mises.org/daily/5427/Why-Legalize-Nowu
The Tenth and the TSA
The Tenth and the TSA
by Becky Akers
Last week, Ohio's " GOP-controlled Senate" passed a resolution that "would place an issue on the November ballot … prohibit[ing] any law from forcing Ohioans to participate in a health care system." The measure now heads to Ohio's House. It needs 60 votes there, which seems likely since "Republicans hold 59 out of 99 seats."
Ohioans are probably shaking in their boots lest the proposition pass. Sure, it could save them from dying in wretched, government-controlled hospitals, but what if the Feds retaliate by closing all the doctor's offices in the state? Or, horror of horrors, they could declare Ohio a "No-Health Zone."
Those fears probably resonate with Texans. After all, Obama's goons threatened to ground aviation in the state and turn the place into a "No-Fly Zone" last month when its legislature toyed with prohibiting the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from sexually assaulting passengers.
If the Feds again rise to such extortion (they can't stoop to it since they're already lower than a maggot's hindquarters), let's hope Ohio's legislature shows more gumption than Texas' did -- but don't count on it: the only difference between the weasels in Austin and Columbus is 1200 miles.
Given Texas' tyrants' craven caving, you might think no state had defied the Feds since Abraham Lincoln butchered Southerners for doing so. But the reality is just the opposite. Thanks to DC's dictatorship, the Tenth Amendment has received more of a work-out during the last decade than in all the other years since Appomattox put together.
First came the REAL ID Act, an attempt from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to turn states' driver's licenses into a national ID. It's doubtful the unconstitutionality – of either driver's licenses or REAL ID -- bothered any governor, but the expense of bringing his Bureau of Motor Vehicles into line with the DHS's decrees certainly did. To date, 19 states have "rejected" REAL ID.
Obamacare faces a similar revolt. Whether states legislate to void medical fascism within their borders a la Ohio or whether they join the lawsuits against it, they're defying the central government.
So Texas and the other four states hoping to forbid the TSA's groping have plenty of company as they try to diminish federal depredations on their citizens. And Texas was off to a solid start last month – a noteworthy achievement since punishing Leviathan's lackeys for their atrocities is rarer among politicians than fidelity to their spouses.
Rep. David Simpson's (R-Longview) bill " would [have made] it a crime of official oppression if federal employees perform a search that involves touching a person's private parts without probable cause to believe the person has committed an offense." Incredible, isn't it, that such gross molestation isn't already a crime. Do we need another bill enjoining federal employees from torturing cats or disemboweling babies?
Predictably, Simpson's effort " died in the regular legislative session in the wake of warnings [sic for 'blackmail'] from federal officials that it would conflict with federal law" – whoa! Who knew federal law allows "touching a person's private parts without probable cause"? And now that we do know, what will we do about it? – "and could force flight cancellations if the safety of passengers and crew could not be assured."
This is manure of nauseating degree, Piled High and Deep. "The safety of passengers and crew" is never at greater risk than when the TSA is groping, robbing , beating, and killing victims – to say nothing of when it damages their planes or traumatizes the pilots on whom depend the lives of everyone aboard. Indeed, if the TSA were actually concerned with protecting us rather than its $8.2 billion yearly budget and 60,000 make-work jobs, it would disband tomorrow.
By now, only morons swallow Our Rulers' lie that the TSA has anything to do with safety. The politicians on the Potomac, like those around the world and throughout history, crave endless, unlimited power. They've gratified that itch by turning America into a police-state to rival Nazi Germany. The TSA with its sexual assault and warrantless searches everywhere, all the time, is crucial to that transformation.
Meanwhile, Texas' legislature will take another shot at Simpson's bill after Gov. Rick Perry quit biting his knuckles long enough to add it to " the Legislature's special session agenda[, meeting this week and next]. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst asked the state attorney general's office for guidance to ensure the measure is in line with the U.S. Constitution and federal law."
You can calculate how far we've travelled down the road to serfdom when Our Rulers actually pretend that they must "make sure" legislation barring bureaucrats from pawing us doesn't conflict with the Constitution. Try to imagine James Madison's reaction to such insult. Even the anti-Federalists would grab their horsewhips rather than remind Jemmy et al, "We told you so."
Nonetheless, "Simpson said he planned … to reword [sic for 'weaken'] the standard from 'probable cause' to 'reasonable suspicion' that someone has committed an offense." Here we have yet another in an infinitely long list of reasons for driving a stake through the TSA's heart, not merely legislating against it. A bill restraining – not eliminating, just restraining – one aspect of its dictatorship hasn't even left its chamber, and it's already crippled.
Not surprisingly, the TSA continues to insist on its prerogative to assault us. One of its battalion of liars – sorry, spokesmen sniffed, "Should a bill pass that limits the ability of TSA and its employees to perform its responsibilities [sic for 'its pedophilia and gate-rapes'] and jeopardizes the safety of the public, we will take whatever legal action is appropriate to ensure travelers are safe when they fly from Texas or any other state."
Oh, please, oh, please! "Ensuring that travelers are safe" means abolishing the TSA.
http://www.americandailyherald.com/20110627602/becky-akers/the-tenth-texas-and-the-tsa
Re: **JP** ARTICLE ON ALLAMA IQBAL (MAJLAS-E-QALANDARAN-E-IQBAL )
Worth reading article by Butt sb at Allama Iqbal.
Very much appriciated, all must read it
Weldone Butt sb
Arif kisana
Sent from my iPhone
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if u want ur colom in daily aajkal plz sent us inpage file (MAJLAS-E-QALANDARAN-E-IQBAL )------- Original Message -----From: Tariq ButtSent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 10:15 PMSubject: **JP** ARTICLE ON ALLAMA IQBAL (MAJLAS-E-QALANDARAN-E-IQBAL )--Dear All
Kindly Click the Link for my latest Column
http://www.zeeshannews.com/emirates/295.htm
Best RegardsTariq Hussain ButtChairman
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Pretty, But No Picture of Conservative Courage
Pretty, But No Picture of Conservative Courage
written by Ilana Mercer on 06.30.11
The crowned queen bees of conservatism have it so easy. They say hardly anything original or gutsy. But because Boobus Americanus is so blinded by boobs of the mind and the mammary glandsthese women keep their crowns.
Ann Coulter isn't going to tackleat least not until it's safethe hot white issue of feral- flash mob violence that has spread across "Chicago's Magnificent Mile, in the upmarket area of Streeterville, in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., in Las Vegas, in St. Paul, Minn., in Philadelphia, on and on."
That's a partial excerpt from my upcoming WND column, "Sacrificing Kids To PC Pieties," in which the immigrant (guess who?) does the dirty job the natives (queen bees of conservatism) won't do (looks out for the kids).
Rather, Ms. Coulter touches on the attack against Glenn Beck and his family in New York, to drive home her recycled thesis (Democrats are bad and Republicans are good). In "Glenn Beck vs. the Mob," Ms. Coulter, in PC fashion, promises that, "Beck and his family would have been fine at an outdoor rap concert."
Really?
According to the Philadelphia Business Times, "100 or more teenagers who left a concert night committed a series of violent crimes." I wonder if it was a "rap concert"?
Another picture of conservative courage is Laura Ingraham, who guest hosted for O'Reilly last tonight. As the blunt bloggers of "View from the Right" noted, "She covered the black thuggery problem without mentioning the race of the thugs or the distinct possibility that they were singling out Caucasians. That's all, folks!"
Republicans for Groping and Pornoscanning
Republicans for Groping and Pornoscanning
Posted by Jacob Huebert on June 30, 2011 09:26 PM
The heroic battle to nullify TSA Tyranny in Texas has likely come to an end. Unsurprisingly, it was ultimately killed by conservative Republicans -- the kind who talk about how much they hate big government, but who actually favor the centralized state when put to the slightest test -- including Governor Rick Perry.
"Edmund Burke" at StopAustinScanners.org has all the sad details.
xxx
Republican "Leadership" Derails "Restrain-the-TSA" Legislation in House
by Edmund Burke
Despite overwhelming support, "restrain-the-TSA" anti-groping legislation (HB 41/SB 29) died this morning by parliamentary procedure when it failed to get sufficient votes to suspend the Texas Constitution to allow 2nd and 3rd readings of the bill in the House on the same day.
The Senate version SB 29, considered the stronger bill by its original author State Representative David Simpson (HD-7), was inserted in lieu of the House bill HB 41, and passed its 2nd reading in the Texas House by a supermajority 106 ayes/27 nays.
Unfortunately, and deliberately, today was the last day of the special session, and to become law it would have had to be read for its 2nd and 3rd times. The Texas Constitution prohibits multiple readings of a bill on the same day unless 4/5ths of the 150 member body consents to suspend the Constitution to pass the bill.
This would not have happened if the state's two most powerful Republican leaders had not worked in concert to defeat the profound popular will of Texans. Governor Rick Perry waited to call the bill into the special legislative until it was virtually too late. Perry continually claimed a need for a "consensus" when strong majority votes were there all the time and the Executive Committee of the State Republican Party had urged him to do so soon after the start of the special session.
The Governor must have developed a case of political tone deafness. An open records request by the Longview News Journal has uncovered that his office received over 10,000 pieces of correspondence from the public urging Gov. Perry to support the passage of Representative Simpson's legislation between May 16th and June 20th, with only 13 messages opposed to the measures. Yet, throughout that time period "Mr. Fed Up" continually claimed there was not enough "consensus" to warrant calling the bill into special session.
House Speaker Joe Straus violated House rules by not bringing HB 41 for a vote in its 1st reading last Friday, June 24th as scheduled by the House Calendars committee. Rather, after declaring a quorum, Speaker Straus quickly adjourned the House on Friday without doing any business, which was a great disappointment to many state representatives who specifically flew into Austin to ensure the quorum. No other business but HB 41 was scheduled before the body that day.
Late Friday afternoon, Speaker Straus characterized HB 41 as nothing more than a "publicity stunt" to the media. HB 41 subsequently passed its 1st reading in the House by unanimous voice vote on Monday afternoon (June 27th), at a point in time when it was no longer eligible to become law by passage through the Senate.
Sensing the deliberate derailing of the legislation, Republican Senator Dan Patrick secured the support of two (2) Democrat Senators to change the Senate rules, which allowed the Senate to draft and pass SB 29 through committee and on the Senate floor before the body adjorned for the session. The Senate version had the support of the Texas Attorney General's office and the Texas County and District Attorney Association. SB29 ensured that Texas would have standing if the bill were ever challendged in federal court when enacted into law.
Speaker Straus refused to acknowledge the Senate messenger's delivery of SB 29 after it was passed Monday night. This set up the need to suspend the Texas Constitution on the last day of the special legislative session to allow 2nd and 3rd readings of the Senate version of the bill. The Speaker's deliberate obfuscations had rendered the House version, (made weaker at the Speaker's own insistence), ineligible for passage since the Senate had already adjourned before it could be considered.
Had Straus allowed the Senate messenger to deliver SB 29 at the time it was presented, the bill's 2nd reading could have been completed yesterday (Tuesday, June 28th), leaving today open for a constitutionally proper 3rd reading. Instead, in a politically vulgar move, the Speaker violated House rules (and the law) and manipulated the proceedings to force Representative Simpson to suspend the State Constitution to achieve final passage of SB 29.
Both Perry and Straus professed support and publicly took credit for protecting your 4th amendment rights by passing a severely compromised bill in the House Monday afternoon, knowing full well that time had run out on the bill before it could be entered into law. At the Speaker's insistence, floor amendments gutted the House version of the bill by exempting the TSA from any prosecution. Although the Senate did accommodate another key demand of the Speaker by permitting TSA to grope private parts if it established "reasonable suspicion" instead of the higher threshold of "probable cause", it seems the Republican leadership (Governor Perry and Speaker Straus) are four square in support of seeing your IV amendment rights violated by federal bureaucrats that have no proper law enforcement training.
In an unusual twist, Democrats cited "national security" as grounds for "taking down the bill" in their floor speaches. In conversations in the halls of the state capitol, it was clear the Democrats were withdrawing the support necessary to suspend the constitution because they did not want the popular disgust for TSA to become another issue for their already embattled and unpopular president. In the floor debate it was pointed out to the Democrats that their national security arguments were moot because the bill did NOT prevent a TSA search, it only established the requirement of reasonable suspicion to perform one on your genitals, breast and rear end, but rational arguments held no sway.
The vote to suspend the constitution fell short of the 120 votes needed and failed by a vote 96 ayes/26 nays. Although we are certain Governor Perry's disengenuous political reflex will be to blame the Democrats for not agreeing to suspend the Constitution to allow a 3rd House reading of the bill, his failure to call the bill in a timely manner despite numerous requests to do so, his total lack of stewardship in the process, and Speaker Joe Straus' willful misconduct are the principal reasons why the legislation was derailed.
This citizen sees Mr. "Fed Up" as little more than Bill Clinton adorned in Republican clothing. It is our sincere hope that Republican primary voters will see past the media glitz and deal a blow to the party establishment's favorite son and Bilderberg attendee.
Over the next few days StopAustinScanners will be writing an Autopsy of Liberty to provide you with more detailed first-hand information on what happened today.
http://stopaustinscanners.org/2011/06/republican-leadership-derails-restrain-the-tsa-legislation-in-house/
**JP** HAI KISI MA DAM JO HAMIAN ROKAY...??
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Re: **JP** ARTICLE ON ALLAMA IQBAL (MAJLAS-E-QALANDARAN-E-IQBAL )
if u want ur colom in daily aajkal plz sent us inpage file (MAJLAS-E-QALANDARAN-E-IQBAL )
----- Original Message -----From: Tariq ButtSent: Thursday, June 30, 2011 10:15 PMSubject: **JP** ARTICLE ON ALLAMA IQBAL (MAJLAS-E-QALANDARAN-E-IQBAL )--Dear All
Kindly Click the Link for my latest Column
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**JP** Letter of Cancellation :-D
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WAQAR SHAFI
I. T. PROFESSIONAL
KARACHI-PAKISTAN.
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**JP** سویڈن کے شب و روز
سویڈن کے شب و روز
Kindly Visit the Daily Jang´s today issue.
http://jang.com.pk/jang/jul2011-daily/01-07-2011/europe/euro8.gif
http://jang.com.pk/jang/jul2011-daily/01-07-2011/euro.htm
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Kindly Visit the Daily Jang´s today issue.
http://jang.com.pk/jang/jul2011-daily/01-07-2011/europe/euro8.gif
http://jang.com.pk/jang/jul2011-daily/01-07-2011/euro.htm
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**JP** US Rejects Demands to Vacate Pakistan Drone Base
|
|
Ashraf M. Abbasi, PhD. 
Ambassador at Large P Think before you print! Save energy and paper.
Ambassador at Large P Think before you print! Save energy and paper.
President: 2003-2005 Chairman-Presidents Council: 2005-2007 Chairman Advisory Council: 2007-2009
The Pakistan American Congress (Washington, DC.) is an umbrella entity of Pakistani-Americans & Pakistani organizations in America since 1990. It is incorporated as a non-profit, non-religious, and non- partisan premier community organization. It serves as a catalyst of social, educational, and political activities which promotes the interests and protects the civil rights & liberties of the Pakistani-Americans in the U.S. It is also vigorously involved in promoting good will, understanding, and friendship between the two countries & two people.
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**JP** Darood-e-Paak
Complete The Chain Of 1,000,000,000, 000s Darood-e-Paak files
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