February 2016 – inliberty.org

Partiot’s Side

One certainly cannot “fix stupid” so, in order to lend the appearance of some sort of intelligence to the RNC and Republican Party leadership, I shall term their current situation as simply desperation.

They are completely clueless that the reason Barack Obama sits in the White House for two terms is the RNC. The reason that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid controlled Congress for so long is the RNC. And the reason Donald Trump is bowling over candidates and attracting ‘yuuge’ crowds (in Bernie Sanders Speak) is the RNC.

And now they are desperate; JEB! is gone; Christie is gone; Graham is gone; Kasich is on life-support… they hate Trump and detest Cruz more. There’s only Marco Rubio. (He isn’t afraid of compromising with the Democrats, so the Status Quo can still be preserved; booty and power shared.)

So the “desperation syndrome” the RNC has acquired sets in, where no stupid idea goes untried… or unexcused.

Enter Mitt Romney on the Fox News Channel last week, suggesting that there’s a “problem” with Donald Trump’s taxes… or, as Mitt described it, “back taxes.” (Doesn’t that imply taxes not paid, as in “owed”?) Anyway, according to Mitt, it’s a “bombshell.”

Isn’t this latest RNC ploy ironic? After Senator Harry Reid’s blanket assertions and unfounded questions concerning his taxes in the 2012 presidential elections, Mitt Romney now plays the Harry Reid card? Amazing.

Then, on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace presses Donald Trump to give the viewers his gross income, effective tax rate, and how much he gave to charity?

Does the RNC not grasp that this type of desperation ploy will drive more voters toward Trump and NOT “take him out”?

The unbridled surrender of the GOP leadership to Obama’s agenda, wrecking the economy, killing fossil fuels, opening borders, outlawing First Amendment freedoms, Balkanizing the nation, shredding the law… that’s what people are worried about.

Pursuing side issues will not move voters from Trump to an “establishment” candidate.

The RNC still doesn’t get it and Fox pundits harassing Trump won’t help.

Nomination Hypocrisy

The Left’s ‘Living, breathing’ Constitution

Responding to Justice Antonin Scalia’s untimely demise and urging his replacement, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took to the podium on February 15, pontificating on the current judicial situation concerning the vacancy of a Supreme Court Justice. She also exposed her knowledge vacancy regarding things constitutional.

First, Senator Warren recited the obvious: “Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says the President of the United States nominates justices to the Supreme Court, with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

Basically, yes; but she didn’t leave it as a statement of fact, done for effect. She had to launch into the legendary Warren sarcasm, revealing how little she cares for Senate procedure and her lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution, for which by her record, she cares even less.

“I can’t find a clause that says, ‘except when there’s a year left in the term of a Democrat president.’ Senate Republicans took an oath just like Senate Democrats did.

“Abandoning the duties they swore to uphold would threaten both the Constitution and our democracy itself. It would also prove that all the Republican talk about loving the Constitution is just that – empty talk.”

Contrary to Senator Warren’s shallow understanding of the Constitution, however, it gives the president the power to nominate, not the opportunity to appoint; the Senate does that, as instructed by the Constitution.

The Senate Republican Majority upholds their oaths by doing exactly what they are doing, because of their love of the Constitution (well, in this case). And, as far as “our democracy itself”… we don’t have one, Senator Warren. The correct term is a republic, used since its inception.

About that comment, “took an oath just like the Democrats did,” Senator Warren: Can I provide some very recent “Democrat history” to correct your recollection?

In 1992, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) spoke from the Senate floor, warning senators not to approve or consider any nominations for the Supreme Court during an election year. He was determined not to allow President George H. W. Bush a chance to put forward a nominee to the court during an election year.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), then Senate Majority Leader, said in 2005, “The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential appointees a vote.”

Also in 2005, Barack Obama, then a Democrat senator from Illinois, filibustered the nomination of Judge Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. Now he rails against the “obstructionist” Republican Senate Majority for suggesting the same thing.

In a speech at the American Constitution Society on July 27, 2007 New York Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer emphatically stated that, “We must not confirm any George Bush nominee to the Supreme Court.” That comment came a full 15 months before the election of 2008.

Yes, the Scalia departure from the court is serious, particularly with the cases to be decided this session and also the cases spinning up for the next year. But the Constitution does not mandate the number of justices required or when vacancies must be filled. Those decisions are the Senate’s.

Once more, the U.S. Constitution tells the Congress that they control the composition of the courts, not vice-versa. Congress decides how many justices and when, including the highest court. Not the president, no matter the party.

Let’s end the nomination hypocrisy.

WeThePeople

Define it… Defend it

‘Social conservatism is… inherent in who we are.’

Republican leadership is repeatedly told by the Socialist-Democrats, “Don’t get mired in ‘social issues’ unless you want to alienate voters and lose elections.”

Just as the Left’s ridiculous suggestions to “pander to minorities” and to “moderate to win independent voters,” this advice is meant to steer Republicans away from election victories. (Of course, the GOP leadership listens and believes; unaware the Socialist-Democrats invented social issue controversy.)

To believe the Socialist-Democrats’ advice concerning social issues is not only foolish, it’s dangerous. Why would a political party self-destruct, abandoning the very foundations and core principles that have kept it viable, by not defending traditional American culture, faith and values?

Deviously activist courts, corporatist interests, and aggressive donor groups, that think nothing of catering to cultural fads at the expense of ordered liberty, continue to press the progressive, radical agenda. They find little resistance from those who should be defenders of Founding Principles.

Yet the RNC and Congressional GOP leadership continue to balk at becoming more aggressive concerning social conservatism. They nibble around the edges.

Jeffrey Bell, in his 2012 book, The Case for Polarized Politics: Why America Needs Social Conservatism, makes the case for protecting our nation’s foundations. “Social conservatism is not here by accident. It’s inherent in who we are, and if we lose it, if we abdicate this argument, we’re not going to be the United States of America anymore.”

His analysis is totally accurate. Social conservatism embodies essential Americanism, composes our social fabric: the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment.

Sadly, our rights guaranteed therein have been under a calculated attack from the Left in the guise of “homosexual rights” and its subsets “sexual orientation’ and “gender identity” (SO/GI). Actually an assault on organized religion, faith in general, it is conducted on all levels – federal, state and, increasingly, local. It denies the primacy of individual rights, making those subservient to group “rights.”

Religious freedom is pushed to the side; people of faith are told to honor the desires of the “special” groups… or else. You will be made to comply with the wishes of those who do not believe as you do and the penalties, we have seen, are serious.

In the case of “additional” rights, for sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other perceived “special need,” the Constitution leaves responsibility for acceptance or denial of these entirely up to the states.

These new concepts, created recently, are not “rights.” Rights preexisted the founding of our nation so these new creations should be identified as privileges, to favor a specific class of individual.

However, “classes” have no place within our system of government. The plan of our nation purposefully avoided the idea of “special privileges” for select groups. We are a people that created a nation founded on individual liberty, not group opportunities for special treatment.

Our Constitution’s First Amendment religious liberty clause protects our beliefs; the free exercise of faith sacrosanct. One cannot be forced to accept, nor abide by in practice, habits or customs that conflict with one’s religious beliefs. And the federal government and most states are powerless to dictate changes, unable by law to subtract or modify what we were given by our Creator. Social conservatism defines who we are, what we’ve been given, what we defend.

Progressive ideologies are never chosen freely by those of faith; these are always imposed – by deceit, theft or force – as we see in the SO/GI attempts across the states.

Each of us has a choice to make, as free individuals. If you believe in religious liberty, stand for your Constitution and your faith. There are forces that wish to take both.

Patriot’s Side

He is known as the “Father of our Country,” yet George Washington, our first president, no longer has a dedicated holiday.

happy-birthday-to-george-washington On this date in 1732, in Westmoreland County, Virginia, a man was born who would shape our nation as no other: leading American forces as General of the Continental Army in our War for Independence; starting the fledgling U.S. Navy with a handful of privateers that aggressively pursued the British Royal Navy; presiding over the composition of the U.S. Constitution as our government framework; and, finally, serving as the first President of the United States.

Some observers, at the time, noted that it seemed Washington’s very character and unshakable purpose were the only things that held the struggling new nation together. His sacrifice of fortune and risk of life in the pursuit of Liberty led his countrymen to view him as the very symbol of what “Americans” were struggling to achieve. In the most trying of battles, General Washington could rally his troops with oratory such as this:

“Our own Country’s Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions. The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny mediated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world, that a free man contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”

Frequently, the mere presence of Washington’s commanding figure, astride his horse, encouraging his troops to press on, turned the tide of conflict. The Marquis de Lafayette had observed Washington halting a retreat, noting that he had “never beheld so superb a man.” The image stuck with him and should also with us, today. It’s time to restore Washington’s Birthday as a holiday.

Patriot’s Side

scalia-4 Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonin Scalia passed away unexpectedly in his sleep early Saturday morning after a day of hunting in western Texas; his death apparently from natural causes.

Our nation mourns the loss of the premier judicial intellect on the U.S. Supreme Court. Seldom have we seen a justice aligned so clearly, unwaveringly, to the intent of the nation’s supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution. He realized his function as a justice was to determine the meaning of the law based on original intent, not to redefine it or rewrite it to accommodate popular leanings or cultural opinions of the day.

He was a staunch originalist; as such the Framers would have been firmly in his corner. He believed in the Constitution’s permanence as our foundation of law.

His dissenting opinion in the case of Obergefell vs. Hodges, decided by the Supreme Court last June to demand recognition of same-sex “marriage” by all fifty states is indicative of his clarity and strict understanding of law.

“… Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court… Until the courts put a stop to it, public debate over same-sex marriage displayed American democracy at its best… But the Court ends this debate, in an opinion lacking even the thin veneer of law… To allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.”

Scalia’s knowledge that court-created same-sex “marriage” would further split the nation, laying groundwork for more divisive struggles, violating natural law and the intent of the U.S. Constitution, was prescient.

The premature loss of his brilliance and character is a tragic loss for the nation.

Thank God we had him for as long as we did. America, strengthened by his presence, is diminished by his passing

“New Americans”

The Obama Regime’s election plan for 2016

The Obama Regime’s plan to “remake” or “transform” America, it’s traditions, culture and demography, is becoming evident to all who care to examine the record. Border Patrol agents tell of threats to their careers if they divulge details.

Massive importation of Middle Eastern “refugees” and an open southern border, not to mention a drastic reduction in deportations of illegal aliens already here, are indeed all part of a plan to remake the composition of America. Barack Obama’s intent is not to simply change the face of America but to alter its very character.

That includes our economic system, energy sources, education system, banking and financial institutions, and… the illegal “rigging” of our political elections.

What follows are brief excerpts from a summary of the president’s plans for an “election-year citizenship push” for “New Americans” – from a master plan to expedite citizenship processing for millions of legal and illegal aliens, coordinated to affect the outcome of the 2016 elections.

In the February, 2016 issue of The Judicial Watch Verdict the president’s plans are exposed, despite the typical Obama administration withholding of documents.

The investigation into “Strengthening Communities by Welcoming All Residents – A Federal Strategic Action Plan on Immigrant & Refugee Integration” by The White House Task Force on New Americans, April 2015, culminated in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on October 16, 2015 “seeking records about an Obama administration effort to push immigrants to become U.S. Citizens in time for the 2016 election.”

Barack Obama’s “New American” initiative resembles Al Gore’s “Citizenship USA” program of the Clinton Era, in which applications for citizenship were fast-tracked without the “required FBI background checks in the run-up to the 1996 presidential election.”

Devious progressive plans that work, as Al Gore’s did in 1996 with Clinton’s reelection, will be recycled if not exposed.

According to Judicial Watch, “Immigration Services reportedly has reallocated vast resources away from its ‘Electronic Immigration System,’ which is used to facilitate national security and criminal background checks, into a campaign of letters to all nine million permanent-resident aliens urging them to become citizens before the 2016 election.” The push “includes federal funding for leftist groups that advocate for illegal aliens and amnesty.”

Judicial Watch found that, “…thousands of illegal aliens already exempted under Obama’s unilateral amnesty moves are also potentially eligible for citizenship. Despite the mass release of criminal aliens by the administration and other immigration non-enforcement violations and failures, the… administration is expanding the quick-time naturalization effort.”

PJMedia.com discovered that, “Multiple sources at DHS confirm that political appointees are prioritizing naturalization ahead of the 2016 presidential election. “Empirical voting patterns among immigrants from minority communities demonstrate that these new voters will overwhelmingly vote for Democrat candidates. If the empirical rates of support… continued among these newly naturalized minority voters, Democrats could enjoy an electoral net benefit of millions of new voters in the 2016 presidential election.”

FoxNews.com also mentioned an inspector general’s report that found “numerous memos… the White House urged the INS to ‘approve, approve, approve’ [citizenship applications] for political reasons, disregarding policies and protocols designed to keep out immigrants who did not qualify for citizenship.”

Judicial Watch described it as “violating the law… importing voters and granting unilateral amnesty to help win elections” or, creating undocumented Democrats.

Complicity

Republican Party leadership in a panic of their own creation

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Republican Party presidential candidate John “Can’t We All Get Along” Kasich implied he was further to the left than Hillary Clinton. He urged New Hampshire Democrat voters to choose him if they were split between Bernie Sanders and Mrs. Clinton. Squish, squish; the ability of establishment Republicans to morph into what they think the “majority of voters want” is sickening.

Kasich showed no recognition of the gravity of the voters’ anger, proudly asking them to allow him to claim the mantle of potential Compromiser in Chief. Some of the gullible believed; Kasich placed second in the New Hampshire Republican primary election the week after his comment.

He has no clue that the only difference between the two Democrat Party candidates is superficial. Bernie Sanders defines himself as a Socialist-Democrat; Hillary Clinton is more devious and secretive, but her core is Socialist. Her roots go all the way back to Saul Alinsky; it’s only her “cover” that changes as politically required. The Democrat Party is her vehicle to power.

Unbelievably, the RNC thinks they can compromise with either one, when there is no real “common ground” on issues.

“If I am elected, I will not blame Obama for a single thing,” explained Jeb Bush in a recent interview. He’s “really tired of those presidents who blame their predecessors.” So Jeb sees no reason to blame the one president who has damaged our country more than any other since FDR and has debased the very concept of our nation? This, from the candidate whose brother and his political party, while in a second term in the White House, made the ascendancy of Barack Obama possible?

Why won’t they awake from the stupor that cost them the last two presidential elections? Can they not grasp the meaning behind the earthquakes that gave them the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014?

The “wake up call” from the GOP base wasn’t ignored, it was refused. Conservatives, evangelicals, and Tea Party members were demonized and alienated, attacked by the RNC and GOP leadership, often individually, for their “extremism,” and their inability to “get along.” Our nation’s Founding Principles have been shredded by the very people who, under sworn oath, were empowered to defend them.

With few exceptions, the GOP did nothing to fight the plague of insidious progressivism, but was instead cooperative.

Massive voter movement toward Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and, to a lesser extent, Ben Carson, is a direct result of GOP indifference toward Barack Obama. Yet the RNC continues to blame thevoters, when the ignorance of the battle and a lack of strategy to win it sit squarely with the Republican Party leadership.

Donald Trump takes the win in New Hampshire and, now in a panic, they still cannot understandwhy he is successful.

Attacks against Marco Rubio for his exposure of the truth at the RNC debate prior to the New Hampshire primary reveals massive ignorance within the Republican leadership, and exposes their complicity.

What Rubio stated at the debate over a week ago (that got Chris Christie so incensed) bears repeating, again and again, until the GOP leadership fully comprehends the substance in the “robotic repetition.”

Will the RNC listen? Not when they’re in a panic, trying to find excuses for their chosen candidate’s failure to attract voters. Republican leadership can’t attack the president’s schemes as intentional; not when they’ve had a hand in his success. Sadly, repeating the truth will have no effect.