Few individual things the left wing is doing these days
really surprise me, but the speed and thoroughness at which they are
accomplishing the destruction of America as we have known it is
startling.
The Obama Administration is stonewalling and in denial on
five or six major scandals, Obamacare looms as a destroyer of freedom, jobs,
and health care coverage, the Senate just voted for an immigration bill that
contains no assurance of secure borders ever, and codifies a come-one-come-all
approach which endangers our economy as well as national security. The
immigration bill, passed unread (unwritten?), in an unnecessary rush with very
little deliberation, awaits House action. Fortunately, the House of
Representatives may not be as gullible as the Senate, and House Speaker John
Boehner (R-OH) has given assurance that the Senate bill will not be taken up by
the House.
The immigration issue should be approached slowly and
deliberately, and start with assured border control. Otherwise, it’s better to
do nothing.
IRS Scandal Gets
Worse
As days go by, more revelations come to light about how high
up the hierarchy this criminal business goes. Now it’s up to the level of the
IRS chief counsel, an Obama appointee, and the White House chief of staff and
the White House chief counsel had information about it but claim Obama did not.
There is as much
chance of reforming the IRS as there is of persuading Hamas to be nice guys and
not bother Israel.
Not gonna happen. Replace the IRS with a different smaller agency with limited
power (such as not seizing money or property without a court order, not leaking
confidential tax records, not running Obamacare, etc.). Throw out the entire
tax code and replace it with a greatly simplified flat tax. Replace the
politically-appointed leadership and fire all personnel who were involved in directing
the abusive actions.
The Administration adds insult to injury by (1) recruiting
thousands more IRS agents to enforce Obamacare, and (2) handing out $70 million
in bonuses to IRS personnel.
The current situation is probably the best opportunity short
of total societal collapse that we will ever see to get rid of the IRS. I wish
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) success in his efforts and I hope many will join in. As
Rahm Emanuel said, we shouldn’t let a good crisis go to waste.
Dumb Diplomacy
As though demagoguery on “climate change” in the U.S. and
U.N. weren’t enough, President Obama spoke at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin
about how this is the great issue of our time, implying it can only be dealt
with by endless taxes and cockamamie schemes that will never work, shutting
down energy production and imposing even more severe government control on
everything. What a stupid, sick joke. The whole thing is idiotic, and I am ’way
past the point of even pretending to want to be civil about this evil hoax any
more.
* * *
And, more recently, Obama feels he must fight for homosexual
rights in Africa and everywhere else. As a
famous preacher has pointed out, this administration has made the sins of
Romans 1 their political platform, and by gosh, they’re going to be sure to
impose them on everyone, like it or not. This reminds me of The Onion’s satirical piece a few years
ago called “Massachusetts
Supreme Court Orders All Citizens to Gay Marry.”
Gay Marriage Ruling: Justices
Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito Correctly Describe the Current Judicial Weirdness Regarding
the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) Ruling
If you want to read something really interesting and
meaningful, read Justice Scalia’s blistering dissent to the
gay marriage ruling.
Mr. Scalia objects to the Court ruling where there is no
controversy before them. He notes that the President enforced DOMA in this case
only to give the “plaintiff” standing. In fact, all parties were in agreement
as to the issue itself as well as with the lower court ruling.
…We have never before agreed to speak – to “say what the law
is” – where there is no controversy before us. In the more than two centuries
that this Court has existed as an institution, we have never suggested that we
have the power to decide a question when every party agrees with both its
nominal opponent and the court below on that question's
answer. The United States
reluctantly conceded that at oral argument [citation]….
…The majority concludes that the only motive for this Act
was the “bare . . . desire to harm a politically unpopular group.” [citation]. Bear in mind that the object of this condemnation is not the legislature of some once-Confederate Southern
state (familiar objects of the Court’s scorn, [citation]), but our respected
coordinate branches, the Congress and Presidency of the United States.
Laying such a charge against them should require the most extraordinary
evidence, and I would have thought that every attempt would be made to indulge
a more anodyne explanation for the statute. The majority does the opposite –
affirmatively concealing from the reader the arguments that exist in
justification. It makes only a passing mention of the “arguments put forward”
by the Act's defenders, and does not even trouble to paraphrase or describe
them [citation]. I imagine that this is because it is harder to maintain the
illusion of the Act’s supporters as unhinged members of a wild-eyed lynch mob
when one first describes their views as they see them….
Justice Alito, in a separate dissenting opinion, writes, in
part
…United
States clearly is not a proper petitioner in
this case. The United States
does not ask us to overturn the judgment of the court below or to alter that
judgment in any way. Quite to the contrary, the United States argues emphatically
in favor of the correctness of that judgment. We have never before reviewed a
decision at the sole behest of a party that took such a position, and to do so
would be to render an advisory opinion, in violation of Article III’s dictates.
For the reasons given in Justice Scalia’s dissent, I do not find the
Court's arguments to the contrary to be persuasive….
…In asking the Court to determine that §3 of DOMA is subject
to and violates heightened scrutiny, Windsor and the United States thus ask us
to rule that the presence of two members of the opposite sex is as rationally
related to marriage as white skin is to voting or a Y-chromosome is to the
ability to administer an estate. That is a striking request and one that
unelected judges should pause before granting. Acceptance of the argument would
cast all those who cling to traditional beliefs about the nature of marriage in
the role of bigots or superstitious fools….
In the DOMA case, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
Clarence Thomas also dissented, joining, in part, the dissents of Scalia and/or
Alito.
Since the days of Chief Justice Earl Warren, the federal
courts have routinely imposed liberal views by legislating from the bench and
seemingly basing decisions more on political preferences than law. The current
Court has made some reasonable decisions, but they do not include this case,
nor the legal stretches of Chief Justice Roberts in the Obamacare case, which
many have written about previously.
* * *
Alas, George
Zimmerman may soon be facing unconstitutional double jeopardy. The shooting
of Trayvon Martin was tragic, but the jury got the verdict right, based on the
evidence presented. Attorney General Eric Holder wants to placate the radical
left and the race-hustler industry by investigating Zimmerman further, although
the previous investigations failed to show any racial hatred on Zimmernan’s
part. But getting liberals to stir up noise and trouble over Trayvon Martin
does distract from some of the embarrassing messes the administration is
currently in. Here we have more of the politics of personal destruction in
action.
* * *
We are living with a U.S.
government out of control. The IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, Fast and Furious, the
Sebelius fund-raising incident, and others, testify to the corruption rampant
in the administration. Further, the left is growing the government to
unheard-of size (with astronomical levels of debt) and seeking to involve government
in every adult decision of our citizens’ lives. Individual freedom shrinks as
government grows. Every movement to the left reduces liberty. But, hey, some people
are getting free stuff, and apparently won’t have to prove any need in order to
get health insurance subsidies. And there’s plenty of corporate welfare – for
now. The corruption of government starts
with, and further corrupts, the citizenry. Of course, the mainstream media has
largely abandoned journalism and reeks of unabashed leftist devotion.
The lack of greater pushback by citizens and legislators
against the dictatorial direction of the federal government is discouraging and
disturbing. God bless the Tea Party and those too-few courageous legislators
and others who are willing to speak up and take action.
