Current Event

According to USAToday, on-line, May 12. 2013

IRS separates Tea Party applications

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for subjecting Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny during the 2012 election, but denied any political motive.

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews. Her remarks, which came at an American Bar Association gathering, were first reported by the Associated Press.

Tea Party groups said they were outraged by the IRS actions.

Jenny Beth Martin, the national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots, said the IRS workers involved should resign. “The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” she said in a statement.”This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach. It is suspicious that the activity of these ‘low-level workers’ was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred.”

Conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They said the agency asked them an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status, and 27 Tea Party groups joined with conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice to push back on the IRS.

Kentucky 9/12 Project is one of the conservative organizations that joined with Sekulow to complain of government overreach.

Its executive director, Eric Wilson, said his group applied for tax-exempt status in December 2010. He said the IRS responded with an 88-page questionnaire that sought all the organization’s correspondence, the names of its members — along with details of group’s activity on Facebook and Twitter. It was eventually granted its nonprofit designation last month.

VS

The IRS and Congress vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

US Constitution, First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

US Constitution, 14^th Amendment

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We the People:

Free speech costs extra. Does this sound like something the Founders and champions of liberty would have established or supported?  We are profoundly off course.

These groups wanted exemption from taxation based on limiting the type of speech in which they would engage. At the discretion of the IRS, they might have achieved that – after the election. Meanwhile, groups more friendly to the Administration would receive less scrutiny. Some would say we just need a better policy at the IRS. Nonsense! As Edmund Burke (Irish statesman from the 18^th century) said, “People never give up their liberties but under some delusion”. We allowed Congress to make a law that gave the IRS the power to abridge speech through the tax code. This must be repealed. Never again should we trust such power-hungry officials to regulate speech through the tax code. Never again should we be deluded enough to compromise the first amendment to the Federal government. A flat tax will dissolve this inordinate power in the executive and the legislative branches.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 189

Current Event

According to FoxNews.com; May 14, 2013

House committee to probe Sebelius soliciting money for ObamaCare signups

House Republicans are starting a probe into Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius soliciting donations from companies her agency might regulate, to help sign up uninsured Americans for ObamaCare.

Sebelius in recent weeks has asked various charitable foundations, businesses executives, churches and doctors to donate money to nonprofit organizations, such as Enroll America, that are helping to implement President Obama’s health care overhaul.

The agency said Friday there is a special section within the Public Health Services Act that allows the secretary to solicit financial support for nonprofit organizations conducting public health work.

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Kathleen Sebelius and the executive branch vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

US Constitution, Article I; Section 1 (excerpt)

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

We the People:

The first section referenced above is from a power delineated to the legislative branch.  Since Kathleen Sebelius is in the executive branch, she obviously does not have that Constitutional authority to raise revenue.  But this goes beyond a profound conflict of interest for the HHS Secretary.  When her regulators extort a donation, is it a request those businesses are free to deny?  To quote from the movie “The Godfather”; “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”  Our land of liberty is diminishing.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 188

Current Event

According to The New York Time, May 5, 2013

Obama Delivers Message of Optimism to Class of ’13

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Acknowledging that commencement addresses are no place for partisanship, President Obama nonetheless skirted close to that political line on Sunday, telling graduates at Ohio State University to ignore anti-government voices that “gum up the works” and instead aspire to be citizens who value both individual rights and community responsibilities.

“Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems,” Mr. Obama told the crowd at the Ohio State commencement ceremony. “Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works; they’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices.”

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President Obama vs. President Washington

Founding Document

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” (George Washington)

“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” (Usually attributed to  Thomas Jefferson.)

We the People:

George Washington’s voice apparently would have been one of those that President Obama would ask us to reject.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 186

Current Event

According to the Wall Street Journal; September 20, 2011

GOP Leaders Urge the Fed Not to Act

Top Republican congressional leaders, in a rare effort to directly influence Federal Reserve policy, expressed reservations about the central bank taking additional steps to spur the recovery, saying further action could harm the economy.

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), and two other GOP leaders, in a letter Monday to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, urged Fed officials to “resist further extraordinary intervention in the U.S. economy.”

The four lawmakers wrote that it wasn’t clear the Fed’s earlier attempts to support the economy through large purchases of government bonds, called quantitative easing, had “facilitated economic growth or reduced the unemployment rate.” They said those efforts had likely increased economic uncertainty.

They said any further efforts by the Fed could “exacerbate current problems or further harm the U.S. economy.”

They said Fed officials should avoid further action, “particularly without a clear articulation of the goals of such a policy, direction for success, ample data proving a case for economic action and quantifiable benefits to the American people.”

The lawmakers’ comments follow criticism of Mr. Bernanke and the Fed’s policies by several GOP presidential candidates. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich both took verbal swings at the Fed chief at a GOP debate earlier this month, piling on to similar remarks made earlier by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Mr. Bernanke hasn’t responded to the swipes, and Fed officials say they are not swayed by politics. The central bank was created as an independent government agency to insulate policy makers from short-term political pressures, so they could try to make decisions in the best long-term interests of the economy.

According to Harvard Professor Martin Feldstein: chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, January 3 in Wall Street Journal

The Fed’s Dangerous Direction

The Federal Reserve is heading in the wrong direction. What the central bank describes as “unconventional monetary policy” is creating dangerous bubbles in asset markets that will lead to higher future inflation and is supporting the explosive growth of the national debt.  Its new “communications strategy” will, moreover, only further confuse markets.

The Fed’s recently announced plan to buy $85 billion a month of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities will keep long-term interest rates at historic lows, with a 1.6% yield on 10-year Treasurys and a negative yield on 10-year TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities). The Fed sees its strategy as a way of boosting the prices of equities, real estate and other assets. It has indeed boosted asset prices, although the increase in individual balance sheets has had very little positive impact on real economic activity.

Once the Fed stops buying securities, however, interest rates will rise and asset prices, including stock prices, will fall. This will have serious adverse effects on investors, particularly highly leveraged institutions and pension funds.

VS

Government of the People vs. Government out of the control of their representatives.

Founding Document

US Constitution, Article I, Section 8 (The Enumerated Powers of Congress ) -Fifth Clause

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

We the People:

This exemplifies how the very powerful agency at the national level is not accountable to the people’s elected representatives.  Congress should not “urge” the Federal Reserve, it should direct it!  Only Congress has the authority to regulate the value of money, and it cannot abdicate that responsibility without a constitutional amendment.  The constitutionality of the Federal Reserve Act should be challenged.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 185

Current Event

According to Foxnews.com/AP, April 19, 2013

Obama taking executive action on guns after Senate vote

Blocked by Congress from expanding gun sale background checks, President Obama is turning to actions within his own power to keep people from buying a gun who are prohibited for mental health reasons.

Federal law bans certain mentally ill people from purchasing firearms, but not all states are providing data to stop the prohibited sales to the FBI’s background check system. A federal review last year found seventeen states contributed fewer than ten mental health records to the database, meaning many deemed by a judge to be a danger still could have access to guns.

The Obama administration was starting a process Friday aimed at removing barriers in health privacy laws that prevent some states from reporting information to the background check system. The action comes two days after the Senate rejected a measure that would have required buyers of firearms online and at gun shows to pass a background check. That’s already required for shoppers at licensed gun dealers.

Stung by the defeat, Obama vowed to keep up the fight for the background check expansion but also to do what he could through executive action.

“Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities,” Obama said from the Rose Garden shortly after the Senate voted. “We’re going to address the barriers that prevent states from participating in the existing background check system.”

The Health and Human Services Department on Friday was beginning to ask for public comment on how the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, passed by Congress in 1996 and known as HIPAA, is preventing some states from reporting to the background check system and how to address the problem. Under HIPAA, health care providers such as hospitals may release limited information to police, but only in certain circumstances such as when a court is involved.

Since 1968, federal law has banned the sale of guns to those who have been deemed a danger to themselves or others, involuntarily committed or judged not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial. The background check system — which is also used to prevent convicted felons from buying guns — was established under the 1993 Brady Bill.

A few state agencies shared mental health records voluntarily for years, but the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 spurred passage of legislation that required states to submit the records or eventually risk losing up to 5 percent of the federal funding they receive to fight crime.

Last year’s review by the Government Accountability Office found that although the number of mental health records available to the background check system increased 800 percent since 2004, some states said they were not sharing mental health information because of concerns about restrictions under HIPAA privacy law. Obama is interested in a change that would specifically allow disclosure of mental health records for the system, and he wants to increase financial incentives for states to contribute the information.

In the Virginia Tech rampage, student Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people to death and committed suicide. He was able to buy two guns even though he had been ruled a danger to himself during a court hearing in 2005 and was ordered to undergo outpatient mental health treatment.

VS

President Obama vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

US Constitution, 4^th Amendment

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

To Quote the French philosopher Montesquieu:

“Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary controul; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.”

We the People:

Before one’s right to medical privacy can be removed, the executive branch must obtain a warrant through the judicial branch based on probable cause.  Thus the essential check and balance is manifested.  President Obama implied he would try to bypass this vital element of liberty.  And he would utilize extortion with federal funding to states if necessary. What records will they find on you and your loved ones?

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 184

Current Event

According to The Hill.com, 03/19/13

House GOP grills top Obama immigration official over release of illegal detainees

House Republicans grilled the Obama administration’s top immigration official on Tuesday for releasing more than 2,000 illegal immigrants from detention facilities.

Republicans accused the administration of playing politics and balked at why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton didn’t ask Congress to move money from another part of the agency to better fund its detention efforts.

Morton said on Tuesday that ICE had released “many” illegal immigrants who had drunk driving records, but only eight Level-1 criminal offenders, the most severe level of aggravated felons, had been released. Morton said four of those serious criminals had been subsequently detained again, because officials realized they had made a mistake in releasing them.

Gowdy said he thought the mass release of illegal immigrants was an attempt by the administration to scare the American public into pressuring Congress to make a deal with the president to avert the sequestration cuts which took effect on March 1. Gowdy grouped the illegal immigrant release with other actions, such as the White House’s temporary cancellation of public tours, reports from the administration about public school teachers who had been furloughed, and the administration’s expressed concern about untested food.

According to FoxNews.com, April 18, 2013

Lawmakers grill TSA official over $50 million uniform order amid sequester

WASHINGTON –  Republican lawmakers took turns Thursday grilling the TSA over questionable decisions it made – including a $50 million contract for new uniforms — around the same time it told the public it was facing severe budget cuts from the government sequester.

VS

President Obama vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

US Constitution, Article II, Section 1, paragraph 3 Presidential Oath Of Office)

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

………………………………………..

US Constitution, Article II (The Powers of The President)

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

………………………………………..

US Constitution, Article II, Section 3 ( The Duties of The Executive Branch)

He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

We the People:

Among a short list of duties and authority, the executive branch is charged with the faithful execution of the laws. Shirking that by releasing lawbreakers indicates disrespect for the Constitution – and us.  This instance appears to be a vindictive warning of how President Obama will react to future attempts to cut his budgetary power.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 183

Current Event

According to NBCNews.com, March 26, 2013

An eighty-three year-old former IBM programmer is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down a law that cost her more than a quarter of a million dollars and deprived her, and thousands of other gay couples, of federal marriage benefits.

At issue is the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress in 1996 and signed by President Bill Clinton. It bars federal agencies from recognizing the validity of same-sex marriages in the states where they are legal.

As a result of DOMA, same-sex couples in states where same-sex marriages are legal are accorded state and local marriage benefits, but not more than 1,100 federal ones. These range from spousal health coverage to Social Security and veterans’ benefits.

Two years ago, Attorney General Eric Holder notified Congress of President Barack Obama’s conclusion that “classifications based on sexual orientation” were inconsistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under law. The Justice Department stopped defending DOMA in court.

House Republicans then hired a former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, Paul Clement, to take up DOMA’s defense. In his written briefs filed with the Supreme Court, he argues that Congress must be able to decide on a definition of marriage for itself.

According to The Washington Post Published: March 28

Majority of Supreme Court justices question constitutionality of Defense of Marriage Act

A majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to strike down a key section of a law that withholds federal benefits from gay married couples, as the justices concluded two days of hearings that showed them to be as divided as the rest of the nation over same-sex marriage.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the pivotal justice on the issue, said the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) may have intruded too deeply on the traditional role of state governments in defining marriage. The federal law recognizes marriages only between a man and a woman, and Kennedy said that ignores states “which have come to the conclusion that gay marriage is lawful.”

“Citizens’ day-to-day life” is affected by the more than 1,100 references to marriage contained in federal laws and regulations, Kennedy said, creating a “real risk of running in conflict with what has always been thought to be the essence of the state police power, which is to regulate marriage, divorce, custody.”

According to NBC News and news services /AP, 2/7/2012

Court: Calif. ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has declared California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional, paving the way for a likely U.S. Supreme Court showdown on the voter-approved law.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a lower court judge correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution when he declared in 2010 that Proposition 8 was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

California voters passed Proposition 8 with fifty-two percent of the vote in November 2008, five months after the state Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage by striking down a pair of laws that had limited marriage to a man and a woman.

The ballot measure inserted the one man-one woman provision into the California Constitution, thereby overruling the court’s decision. It was the first such ban to take away marriage rights from same-sex couples after they had already secured them.

According to NBCNews.com, March 26, 2013

Supreme Court hints that it won’t issue sweeping ruling on same-sex marriage

The justice whom many observers view as the swing vote in the case, Justice Anthony Kennedy, voiced worry at one point during the argument that proponents of same-sex marriages were asking the court to issue a decision that would “go into uncharted waters.”

At issue Tuesday was California’s Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment enacted by voters in 2008 that limits marriage to one man-one woman couples. Those seeking to have the court strike down Proposition 8 argue that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment includes a right for same-sex couples to marry.

During the argument, Justice Antonin Scalia was the one justice who voiced the most skepticism about the argument that limiting marriage to heterosexual couples is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

He said to Olson, “I’m curious, when did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted? Was it always unconstitutional?”

VS

Supreme Court vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

The US Constitution, Amendment 10

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. – James Madison, Federalist 45 (reference to Article I, section

US Constitution, Amendment 14, Section 1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We the People:

Attorney General Holder referenced the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment as his reason to stop defending the The Defense of Marriage Act.  But this is not the first time it has been taken out of context.   Paraphrasing from The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, “strict scrutiny with this clause is limited to race, national origin and ethnicity”.  So it should not apply in determining who can marry, and Mr. Holder should do his job.

The United States Supreme Court is rightfully concerned about its image.  Past courts have inappropriately used this same clause to transfer power to the federal government.  Consequently, sometimes it behaved like a political body that rationalized federal interference in reference to unconstitutional court precedents instead of the text of the Constitution.  The Court would be more credible if it set a precedent of consistently respecting the tenth amendment.

Take another look at those words of the Tenth Amendment. They succinctly affirm a pillar of our republic – the vertical separation of powers.  So contrary to what Paul Clement wrote above, since defining marriage is not explicitly delineated in the enumerated powers, it is the prerogative of the individual states – not Congress. Likewise, the government did not have the authority to create those 1100 unconstitutional federal benefits, which opened the door to subvert the authority of the states.   So if it references the Constitution, the Supreme Court will not uphold DOMA; and it will strike down the ninth federal circuit’s decision by upholding California proposition 8.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 182

Current Event

According to ABCNews,      Mar 13, 2013

President Obama: There Is No Debt Crisis

There has been no shortage of dire warnings about the mounting US national debt, but President Obama is now offering a different assessment: no big deal.

“We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt,” President Obama said in an exclusive interview with George Stephanopoulos for “Good Morning America.” “In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s gonna be in a sustainable place.”

According to the U.S. Debt Clock website each of our 315,000,000 citizens owes over $53,000 to the federal government.

According to CBS News; September 4, 2012

As national debt passes $16 trillion, GOP blasts Obama’s policies

(CBS News) Hours before Democrats were set to officially kick off the Democratic National Convention, the Treasury Department on Tuesday announced that the national debt has surpassed $16 trillion for the first time in American history – giving Republicans fodder for criticism as Democrats celebrate their party and the president.

In a statement following the announcement, House Speaker John Boehner targeted President Obama’s economic record, casting the news as “another sad reminder of President Obama’s broken promise to cut the deficit in half.”

“This debt is a drain on our economy and a crushing burden on our kids and grandkids, and it’s yet another indication that the president’s policies have made things worse,” he argued.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, warned that the U.S. is on a “dramatically unsustainable path,” and accused the president of being “strangely unconcerned.”

Our Ruling:

Guinta’s terminology is clouded. Children alone aren’t paying for the debt, and they certainly don’t owe any money today. But, taking a step back, as the Congressman tries to illustrate the weight of the debt, his numbers are on target as long as they are spread across the entire population, at this moment in time.

To pay off the debt, each person in the country, including children, would have to pay an average of $50,810 — slightly above Guinta’s $50,000 figure.

We rate his claim Mostly True.

According to CNSNews.com, October 12, 2012

Obama’s Housing Agency Spending Millions to Transform Inner Cities Into ‘Sustainable Communities’

The Obama administration’s effort to create government-sanctioned “sustainable communities” moved ahead this week, with the announcement of almost $5 million in planning grants.

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan said the “Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grants” are intended to revitalize entire neighborhoods – “to improve the lives of the residents who live there.”

In other words, the planned infrastructure improvements lean heavily on social engineering.

The Obama administration defines sustainable communities as places that have a variety of housing and transportation choices, with destinations (such as schools and shopping) that are close to home. “As a result, they tend to have lower transportation costs, reduce air pollution and stormwater runoff, decrease infrastructure costs, preserve historic properties and sensitive lands, save people time in traffic, be more economically resilient and meet market demand for different types of housing at different prices points.”
VS

The President vs. The Constitution and Jeffersonian principles on debt

Founding Document

US Constitution, 10^th Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

“We believe–or we act as if we believed–that although an individual father cannot alienate the labor of his son, the aggregate body of fathers may alienate the labor of all their sons, of their posterity, in the aggregate, and oblige them to pay for all the enterprises, just or unjust, profitable or ruinous, into which our vices, our passions or our personal interests may lead us. But I trust that this proposition needs only to be looked at by an American to be seen in its true point of view, and that we shall all consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves; and consequently within what may be deemed the period of a generation, or the life of the majority.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:357

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” –Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1820.

“I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.” – Thomas Jefferson to William Plumer, July 21, 1816

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” ― John Adams

We the People:

Our leaders cannot ignore the restrictions of the constitution indefinitely without dire consequences to the economy.  President Obama implied that our present debt and economic path is unsustainable in ten years.  Among many unconstitutional programs, federal funding for social engineering through “sustainable communities” is unsustainable.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 181

Current Event

According to The New York Daily News, March 13, 2013

Mayor Bloomberg says costs of treating obesity will ‘bury all of us’

Mayor Bloomberg warned that the cost of treating obesity “is going to bury all of us” on Wednesday as he continued to defend his proposed big-soda ban.

“We think the judge is 100 percent wrong,” Bloomberg said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” before making his case for putting limits on sugary drinks over 16 ounces.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling struck down the ban on Monday, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.”

“More people will die from overeating than starvation,” Bloomberg argued Wednesday morning, adding that obesity has “gone from a rich person’s disease to a poor people’s disease.”

According to US News; November 20, 2012

More Americans Will Use Food Stamps For Thanksgiving This Year Than Ever Before

RSS Feed Print More Americans will use food stamps to buy their Thanksgiving dinner this year than ever before, according to a new report from the nonprofit government watchdog group The Sunlight Foundation.

Usage of food stamps among low and no-income families has spiked since the collapse of the U.S. financial system four years ago. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, average participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp program, has increased 70 percent since 2007. And economists have warned that usage of food stamps won’t go down until unemployment improves.

According to The New York Times, September 28, 2011,

Food Stamps and Obesity

Forty-two percent of low-income women in the United States are obese, and the rate of obesity is even higher among women who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly the food stamp program.

Researchers have spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether this is the result of receiving SNAP benefits or whether there is simply a correlation between obesity and SNAP participation that arises because the low-income women who are more likely to be obese are also those most interested in getting SNAP benefits. The research suggests that SNAP participation may actually cause an increase in the likelihood of obesity for low-income women. A relationship between SNAP participation and obesity has not been found for low-income men.

According to FoxNews.com, January 09, 2003

Research Links Food Stamps and Obesity

For years now, Americans have been growing fatter. Studies show that the poor are even more likely than the average person to be obese.

One researcher blames the weight problems among the low-income and poor on government programs designed to keep them from going hungry, saying there’s too much focus on high-calorie intake and not enough – or any – on teaching healthy eating habits.

“In a time of mass obesity, encouraging the poor to consume more food makes no sense at all,” said the researcher, University of Maryland Professor Douglas Besharov.

Those who give out food stamps disagree with Besharov’s argument, and defend their aid programs for the poor.

“I have not seen any evidence that our programs cause or contribute to obesity,” said Roberto Salazar, administrator of the federal Food and Nutrition Services.

…

“When we give poor families food stamps instead of cash, we know that they will consume 20 percent more food,” Besharov said. “That might be great at a time of hunger and malnutrition, but at a time of obesity, that’s a mistake.”

The overeating epidemic is growing fastest among poor kids: 16 percent of low-income children are either overweight or obese, twice the rate of other children. That puts federally-funded school breakfast and lunch programs – which are mandated to provide 60 percent of students’ total daily caloric intake – under the microscope.

VS

Federal Food programs vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

US Constitution, 10^th Amendment

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Federalist Paper 45, James Madison

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

“To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity, ’tis Godlike, but if we provide encouragements for Laziness, and supports for Folly, may it not be found fighting against the order of God and Nature, which perhaps has appointed Want and Misery as the proper Punishments for, and Cautions against as well as necessary consequences of Idleness and Extravagancy…”  (Benjamin Franklin, 1753)

We the People:

The constitutional powers of Congress do not include using the public treasury to feed people.  If the federal government was not exceeding its authority, America’s poor would not be afflicted with this “disease”; and charity would be returned to the deity through the churches and private organizations.  Placing this function in government is wasteful and establishes a concerning merger of church and state.

Current Events        vs.       Founding Documents

Entry 180

Current Event

According to  FoxNews.com, March 14, 2013

Cruz, Feinstein tangle over 2nd Amendment as panel approves assault-weapons ban

Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Dianne Feinstein tangled Thursday over the Second Amendment, with the pro-gun control Feinstein accusing the freshman Republican senator of trying to “lecture” her as the committee on which they sit advanced a renewed assault-weapons ban.

Cruz, R-Texas, among the Republicans who oppose the bill, got into the heated exchange with Feinstein, D-Calif., when he posed a hypothetical question on the bounds of the Constitution.

“The Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights provides that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” Cruz started out — and then asked whether the First Amendment should “only apply” to certain books or the Fourth Amendment should only protect certain people from unreasonable searches.

Feinstein became visibly agitated by the questioning.

“Let me just make a couple of points in response — one, I’m not a sixth grader,” she said. “Senator, I’ve been on this committee for 20 years. I was a mayor for nine years. … I saw people shot.”

In response to Cruz, Feinstein pointed out her experience in the Senate.

“I’ve studied the Constitution myself. I am reasonably well-educated, and I thank you for the lecture,” she said, before stressing that her latest proposal “exempts 2,271 weapons.”

Cruz, who has developed a reputation for feisty debate in committee hearings, responded that “nobody doubts (Feinstein’s) sincerity or her passion.”

However, he noted, she “chose not to answer the question that I asked.”

Cruz again asked if the Constitution would allow certain books to be banned.

“The answer is obvious — no,” Feinstein said, though senators subsequently agreed that some pornographic content could be regulated.

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Senator Diane Feinsten Vs. The Constitution

Founding Document

US Constitution; 1st Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

US Constitution; 2^nd Amendment

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

We the People:

A distinction was made for regulating pornographic material.  Note that the words of the first amendment restrain only Congress, so the states may indeed limit such speech if their state constitution allows it.  However the second amendment does not delineate this restraint; it limits all levels of government.  The only legitimate approach is to either amend the Constitution or stop this bill.

The words of the second amendment are indeed clear enough for a sixth grader to understand.  A sixth grader can see that the definition of “infringe” from the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary is “to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another”.  A six grader can also see that the second amendment does not provide an exception to infringe upon this right for experienced or elite Senators who have seen tragic shooting scenes.  So why does Senator Feinstein not respect it at face value?  Did she not state an oath to uphold the Constitution?