Wednesday, March 13, 2013

An Old Man's Fears


This past weekend I was able to drive to Arizona with my wife, daughter, and granddaughter to visit with my 82-year-old father for the first time since my mother had passed away. It was a wonderful visit, my Dad got to see his great granddaughter for the first, and what will most likely be the only time. It’s strange, but I think that both of us knew deep down inside that this would be the last time we would see each other. At least see each other with both of us alive. I never thought that I would see or even contemplate the fact that the one constant in my life would one day no longer be there for me to talk to or even have him yelling at me for some bone headed thing I might have or would possibly do in my life. Yet here it is, staring me in the face. Someday soon, my father will one day not be there and I will have to depend upon the lessons that he tried to teach me to carry me through to the end of my own time.
As you can see, I love my Dad. I know that it’s kind of cliché’ and corny to admit it in public, but it is never the less true. Most importantly, despite the mistakes that he made in his life, I am proud of him. I am proud of his genius with electronics and the contributions he’s made to the world, which believe it or not are many, and I am especial proud of his accomplishments in his political life, as the Representative for District 9, in the State of Arizona.
Many years ago, a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star asked me what I thought of my father being re-elected to the state legislature. I described him as being at that time, the Republicans Republican. I don’t know that that description would hold true now. As we visited, we talked politics, as we usually do. As we talked, he asked me; what do you think of the Republican Party? Knowing my Dad, I knew that he had a reason for asking me that question. I also knew that in a way it was a loaded question. Nevertheless, being fearless and knowing that he would detect a lie faster than a dog goes for raw meat I replied; I think the Republican Party has failed. I think that they no longer represent the ideas and issues that are important to the American people. Surprisingly, he looked at me and smiled and said that he agreed.
He went on to say that in light of Obama’s past actions and what he has currently been doing he felt that Obama would attempt a coup of sorts and try to become the Dictator of America. Strong statement from a man who four years previously said that he believed that Obama might do some good for this country. Although he would say it, I think that’s the closest I have ever seen him come to admitting he was wrong. Yet, at the same time, his statement about Obama attempting to become the Dictator of America was frightening. He’s very rarely wrong about these things, and would have said it if he didn’t feel that it could be true.
Some of you would say; well, he’s just an old man, and doesn’t understand the way things are now days. You’d be wrong. They say that with age comes wisdom, most certainly experience if not wisdom, and Dad has a lot of both.
Let’s take a look at some of  the top ten Constitutional Violations that Obama has committed since he’s been in office, then you decide for yourself;
1. The individual mandate
No list of President Obama’s constitutional violations would be complete without including the requirement that every American purchase health insurance, on penalty of civil fine. The individual mandate is unprecedented and exceeds Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. If it is allowed to stand, Congress will be able to impose any kind of economic mandate as part of any kind of national regulatory scheme. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has a chance to strike this down during its current term.
2. Medicaid coercion
The Court will also be taking up Obamacare’s massive intrusion on federal-state relations in the form of a coercive Medicaid expansion. The law compels states to drastically increase their Medicaid expenditures and reorganize their health care bureaucracies, on penalty of losing all (not just additional) Medicaid funds. No state contemplated such a program when it signed onto Medicaid — Arizona was the last to join, in 1982 — and now no state can afford to withdraw. Indeed, even if some withdrawal mechanism existed, withdrawn states’ taxpayers would still be funding complying states’ Medicaid programs. As the Supreme Court held in South Dakota v. Dole, there comes a point when “the financial inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which pressure turns into compulsion.”
3. The Independent Payment Advisory Board (a.k.a. “The Death Panel”)
IPAB is the group of 15 presidential appointees who, beginning in 2014, are tasked with reducing Medicare spending. Any decisions IPAB makes automatically become law that can only be overridden by a three-fifths majority vote in the Senate. Unlike other federal agencies, IPAB is subject to no external review — no public notification in advance of proposed rules or opportunity for comment, no administrative guidelines and no judicial review. Medicare comprises about 13 percent of the federal budget, so that’s an awesome amount of power for Congress to delegate to unelected executive-branch bureaucrats. Indeed, it’s so basic a violation of traditional separation of powers that there’s no historical analog. The Goldwater Institute has filed a strong lawsuit challenging this (yet another) unprecedented aspect of Obamacare, which will continue wending its way through the lower courts regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the individual mandate and Medicaid-coercion issues.
4. The Chrysler bailout
Building on the Bush administration’s illegal use of TARP funds to bail out the auto industry, the Obama administration bullied Chrysler’s secured creditors — who were entitled to “absolute priority” — into accepting 30 cents on the dollar, while junior creditors such as labor unions received much more. This subversion of creditor rights violates not just bankruptcy law but also the Constitution’s Takings and Due Process Clauses. This blatant crony capitalism — government-directed industrial policy to help political insiders — discourages investors and generally undermines confidence in American rule of law.
5. Dodd-Frank
Intended to remedy weaknesses in the U.S. financial system — ensuring transparency and accountability — the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” empowered unlimited, unreviewable and often secret bureaucratic discretion. The administrative bodies the legislation created face no constraints on the exercise of arbitrary authority. For example, the Treasury Department now has broad and essentially unchecked power to seize banks and other financial entities that it determines are unsound but “too big to fail.” The new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Financial Stability Oversight Council, meanwhile, craft, execute and interpret their own law. Due process and separation of powers issues abound.
6. The deep-water drilling ban
Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Interior Department issued a blanket six-month moratorium on new oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. A federal judge struck down that moratorium as arbitrary and capricious, but the government issued a new order to replace the one that was struck down. That order was subsequently withdrawn, but the judge was so shocked by the administration’s conduct that he found the government in civil contempt of court.
7. Political-speech disclosure for federal contractors
In April of this year, President Obama released a draft executive order (still pending) that would require businesses with federal contracts to disclose independent expenditures on federal elections (political speech independent of candidates and parties). This order is intended to undermine the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision — allowing independent expenditures by corporations, unions and other associations — by discouraging federal contractors and their executives from engaging in political speech. Citizens United held that such expenditures do not enable the kind of quid pro quo corruption that campaign finance laws are allowed to regulate, so this draft executive order shows contempt for the First Amendment by chilling protected speech.
8. Taxing political contributions
Earlier this year, the IRS tried to muzzle political speech by asserting that donations to certain nonprofit advocacy groups (so-called 501(c)(4) organizations) would be subject to the gift tax. Historically, the IRS has not applied the gift tax in this way — donations to advocacy groups are not likely to be used to circumvent the estate tax — and when the IRS previously tried to tax political donations, it was rebuffed by the courts on the grounds that such transfers are not gifts (i.e., the donor is getting something in return). The IRS has since backed down, but the suspicion remains that it was trying to chill the political speech of those opposed to President Obama’s policies, in violation of the First Amendment.
9. Graphic tobacco warnings
Late last year, the FDA issued regulations requiring cigarette manufacturers to display graphic warnings on all packs of cigarettes that must cover at least 50% of the packaging and graphically portray tobacco-related illnesses. These warnings violate the First Amendment because the government is compelling the cigarette manufacturers to discourage their customers from buying their lawful products. Last month, a federal judge blocked the new regulation, which was due to go into effect in January, but the administration is appealing.
10. Health care waivers
The Department of Health and Human Services has granted nearly 2,000 waivers to employers seeking relief from Obamacare’s onerous regulations. Nearly 20 percent of these waivers went to gourmet restaurants and other businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district. Nevada, home to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, got a blanket waiver, while Republican-controlled states like Indiana and Louisiana were denied. Even beyond the unseemly political favoritism, such arbitrary dispensations violate a host of constitutional and administrative law provisions ranging from equal protection to the “intelligible principle” required for congressional delegation of authority to cabinet agencies. Unlike 17th-century English monarchs, American presidents were not granted dispensing powers: As we’ve seen, the power to suspend a legal requirement can and will be used to arbitrarily favor the politically connected. Moreover, most of these waivers were never authorized by Congress in the first place!
What is most frightening is that these are just ten of what already amounts to hundreds of violations to our Constitution. Both he and that cow he’s married too are already on the public record stating that the Constitution is an inconvenience to what needs to be done to America. What needs to be done to America?
Here is a man that has driven this country into a financial crisis of mega proportions, yet he refuses to acknowledge that fact, blaming every one of his predecessors for the problems he has caused.
Is the old man wrong about Obama? Will Obama try and become the Dictator of America? Already there are rumors all across the country saying that his supporters are going to try for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment that would allow him to run for a third term. Rumors that seem to be substantiated are growing in intensity that Obama is asking members of the American military if they would fire upon American citizens if ordered to. If they say, no they wouldn’t then they are immediately dismissed from military service.
I guess that sometimes I feel like a voice in the wilderness, trying to convince Americans that we are in dangerous and threatening times. The next question is this; what will you do if the old man is right? Will you stand up and fight, or will you allow it to happen? Will you fight to take back America and everything that it stands for, or will you just sit there and say, “there’s nothing that I can do about it?”
Whether or not you realize it, we are indeed becoming a third world nation, and my statements concerning Obama acting like an African Dictator are more true now than ever before. Think about it when you get to be 82 and they are about to slip a needle into your arm because they can no longer afford you and you are no longer productive to the state.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to comments. Here you can agree, disagree or present a good arguement. Just keep it clean and do not attack others.

But do not expect me to be nice when you are stupid. If I am stupid tell me and I'll check it out and correct it.