Posse Incitatus

Cafeteria Constitutionality

Those who keep up on theological discussions are proably familiar with the derisive term "cafeteria Christianity." It is usually leveled by conservative clergy and theologians against their liberal counterparts as a way of alleging slective interpretation of scripture: You pick and choose what you want Christ's word to be, and disregard the rest. (AKA "grocery store" Christianity: Pick what you want off the shelves, put it in your cart and be on your way, passing by the remainder of the items.)

I suppose lefty outfits such as the National Council of Churches could accuse the Southern Baptist Convention and their ilk of exercising cafeteria Christianity in the opposite direction, but that's a discussion for another day.

Today I'd like to coopt the cafeteria metaphor to describe the Obama administration's adherence to our nation's founding document: The U.S. Constitution.

In recent months, we have learned about the administration's wholesale contempt for the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Rather than British redcoats beating down the door and rifling through papers and documents, this is a high-tech version: getting Internet service providers and telecommunication companies to provide information on personal emails and telephone calls of millions of innocent Americans (no real need for a "seizure" if you can cow companies into cooperating via the implicit threat of hellish harassment for those who resist), and searching through those records (data mining) in hopes of finding that needle in a haystack.

The Internal Revenue Service is also getting in on the game, exercising its role as thought police and also shredding the First Amendment. While determining the eligibility of various Patriot and Tea Party groups for tax exempt status, IRS employees pried deeply into group members' personal lives with intrusive questions about religious beliefs and prayer meetings outside of Planned Parenthood clincis. One agent was caught on tape telling an applicant, "Keep your faith to yourself."

Let's face it, the federal tax code is so enormous in size and complexity, it is like one giant orchard of low hanging fruit beckoning to tax lawyers and accountants who have 100 percent fealty to the O-man's statist vision. 

Then there's that political football of constitutional phrases, the "general welfare" clause found in the preamble to the constitution. It grants Congress the power to "lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare" of the United States.

In the minds of many progressives who love big government, "general welfare" is a Christmas tree grab bag of entitlements and goodies to pay off cronies and campaign donors. They don't pay much heed to the 10th Amendment, which states,"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." 

In some cases, the administration doesn't necessarily expand and broaden its constitutional power; it ignores certain laws (many of which directly stem from constitutional principles), such as deciding to ease enforcement of U.S. immigration laws so young illegal immigrants can remain in the country to work and study without fear of deportation. Just another end run around Congress for the O-man.

Many Republicans, such as Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, are in favor of the NSA's heavy-handed activities. Rogers has taken to the airwaves to trumpet how 54 terrorist attacks have been prevented through use of this type of surveillance. But as my esteemed co-blogger, K.N. McBride, noted a few weeks ago, "all the data-mining in the world is useless without the will to do anything with it."

A heavy surveillance routine failed to stop terrorist attacks such as the Boston bombers last April and Maj. Nidal Hasan at Fort Hood in November 2009.  Moreover, as the IRS scandal clearly illustrates, more personal and private information in the hands of government invites abuse. This is partly due to human nature — federal bureaucrats are always looking to score brownie points with their supervisors in hopes of getting promoted. But it's also due to the fact that, generally speaking, lifetime government bureaucrats tend to be on the left end of the political spectrum.

In retrospect, I was naive and didn't think things through when I supported enactment of the Patriot Act in 2002. I should have followed my general rule of thumb: When conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats line up and push through legislation, watch out! Turns out, many of the functions of the Department of Homeland Security were already being performed by other government agencies. The amount of duplication, overlap and waste (not to mention destructive "turf wars" among the egotists) ... this is an obscenity and permanent blot on our nation.

We are fast approaching the point, with surveillance cameras everywhere, marketers monitoring our purchases, and the NSA, IRS and FBI prying into everything under the sun, where we will have a metaphorical "armed guard on every corner." In the literal sense, an armed guard on every corner could make you a LOT safer (especially on the east side of Detroit or south side of Chicago). But in many neighborhoods, it would be useless and expensive overkill. Ditto for the current practices of massive electronic surveillance. The sad thing is, the cat's out of the bag (or the milk has already spilled on the floor, whichever metaphor you prefer).

A difficult and tortuous road lies ahead. George Orwell was right; he was just off by about three decades.

Slouching toward Gestapo

It comes as no surprise to anyone with a cursory knowledge of history that big government facilitates abuse. Abuse of taxpayers' dollars, rights, privacy and trust.

"The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse," said 19th century Irish statesman Edmund Burke. Indeed.

Unfortunately, in 2013, the American government has grown enormous. Our nation has as its "leaders" a cabal of elitist statists who sincerely believe they know what's best for us, and that they have the moral high ground in using the government to impose their vision upon the rest of us.

A few months ago it came to light that the Internal Revenue Service was targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups for thorough scrutiny, and harassing citizens seeking tax-exempt status with a flurry of intrusive questions.

Last week, during congressional hearings into the IRS scandal, it came out that the IRS chief counsel, an appointee of President Barack Obama, knew about the targeting of conservative groups. In retrospect, it really looks ludicrous that the administration, including Obama spokesman Jay Carney, lied through their teeth about rogue Cincinnati employees undertaking the targeting on their own. But by now we're accustomed to Obama administration officials telling bald-faced lies and no one calling them on it.

Not only did the IRS target and harass conservative groups and make it more difficult for them to achieve tax-exempt status; the agency also provided confidential tax information on 31 conservative groups to left-wing organization ProPublica, in flagrant violation of the law.

The National Security Agency, we recently learned, has been aggregating phone data from tens of millions of innocent Americans. They claim they only have phone numbers and don't or can't monitor conversations. Yeah, right. And the check's in the mail...

Recently, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., the hack Eric Holder and his politicized Department of "Justice" (I know, it's definitely the wrong word), have expressed an interest in possibly filing civil rights charges against Zimmerman. The DOJ actually set up a tip line asking people to phone in any information they have about Zimmerman being involved in racist activities, including making statements or writing offensive material. This is getting to be downright Orwellian.

The press would be blowing a gasket 24/7, in high dudgeon, if these shenanigans were happening under G.W. Bush. The left-wing professional agitators would be breaking shop windows, hurling smoke bombs and cursing obscenities nightly. But instead, the outcry has been somewhat subdued, and more likely to come from the far left fringes (Mother Jones magazine, The Nation and left-wing cartoonist Ted Rall are among the few who have harshly criticized the O-man).

But the fact is, that just as our economic condition grows more precarious by the week (hundreds of billions of dollars in funny money floated by the Fed), our liberty is in grave danger. The abuses of government don't always start with a sudden burst of activity. They are often gradual, insidious, yet persistent and highly damaging.

Incremental tyranny is alive and well. The Republican Party, as deeply flawed as it is, is all that stands between us and a dark, foreboding future. If the Democrats gain full control of Congress and keep it for more than two years, we'll be headed rapidly for the abyss of European-style socialism and default, large-scale government spying and harassment of average Americans, and increasing persecution of Christians for daring to believe in tenets that oppose the secular progressive views.

It is not the least bit farfetched to believe that if the monstrosity known as Obamacare becomes fully entrenched (something the Dems may be able to do once they open up the spigot and start showering billions of dollars worth of subsidy money on the millions of low-information voters), one's political leanings may well affect the quality of health care he receives.

Americans need to be vigilant, for we are at a precarious juncture. Apathy in 2013 could be catastrophic.

I began this blog by quoting an Irishman, now I'll wrap it up by quoting another Irishman: John Philpot Curran, a lawyer, politician and orator: "It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

 

Detroit Pulls the Trigger

It comes as no surprise that Detroit has become the largest American city ever to file for bankruptcy.

Earlier today, the city's emergency financial manager, Kevyn Orr, filed papers in U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection from myriad creditors. These include 47 labor unions and dozens of bondholders, banks and insurance companies.

This is truly a wakeup call, and the mindless rabblerousers who have complained bitterly against Gov. Rick Snyder's appointment of an emergency financial manager now must realize that all of their whining and bitching is for naught. It's in the hands of a federal bankruptcy judge and others whom the judge may appoint to help sort out this tangled mess.

It took decades of highly dysfunctional government, bloated bureaucracy, self-serving labor unions, pension fund mismanagement, white flight, growing crime, inept leadership and ubiquitous corruption to bring Detroit to this point. These maladies compounded the American auto industry getting hammered by foreign competition and the relentless march of technology.

In short, Asian auto producers made huge inroads against GM, Ford and Chrysler — domestic car companies' U.S. market share declined from 74 percent in the early 1990s to 45 percent today — and hundreds of thousands of jobs paying decent wages to laborers with limited education were either outsourced or replaced by robots.

It's not just the factory jobs, truckers who transport new cars to dealerships and the new car dealers themselves that have been hard-hit. It's also the parts producers and suppliers, the machine shops, foundries and steel mills. Too, white collar automotive jobs — engineers, marketers, managers, accountants, attorneys — have become more scarce.

In the case of Detroit, as one observer noted, it's like a Katrina that lasts 50 years. The insane economic policies of the Obama administration, which twist and distort markets and crush incentives to invest, expand and be innovative, are simply pouring gasoline on the fire.

Detroit is truly a Greek Tragedy, as the Washington Post's Charles Lane commented. It took decades to reach this horrendous point. And it may well take decades for the once thriving Motor City to bounce back, if it ever does.

Needless to say, lawyers, union leaders, bankers and assorted other players will tangle vigorously in the courts during the next few years. This ought to keep the media and bloggers pretty busy. It will make for compelling TV news footage, and provide grist for all manner of commentators. Sadly, the long-suffering residents of Detroit cannot expect to get relief any time soon.

 

Detroit runs out of rope

For the entire span of my life, the city of Detroit has been in decline.  Two generations have grown to adulthood since the Motor City was a safe, vibrant, growing metropolis.

The real shock of its municipal bankruptcy is not that it happened, it is that it took so long.  It is an understated yet appropriate counterpoint to the Trayvon foolishness - people protest a the result of a show trial while an entire city succumbs to financial collapse.

The idealist in my hoped that this would be avoided and that the people of goodwill within the city and the state capital would somehow find a way to work together for the common good.

But the realist in my knew it would never happen.  The tensions are too profound, the leaders too short-sighted and the stakes too great.  Call it King Lear on the River Rouge or MacBeth in Motown, but this tragedy was foreordained.  Some people simply have to reach the end to the tether to make a change; so long as there is an inch of rope left, they will play it out.

With the bankruptcy - which is a process, not an event - will come a reckoning.  It will not be easy, but it is necessary.

In many ways Detroit's collapse prefigures the national debt crisis that is sure to come.  In both cases people will believe that empty promises can somehow be honored, even though the means to do so are long gone. 

And in both cases, the sun wills till rise on the morning after, and people will still go about their business.  Some will struggle to keep up the appearances of things the way they were, but those with vision will understand that it is time to look forward and adjust to the new reality.

 FEARLESS PREDICTION:  Having twice handily won Michigan's electoral votes - largely on the strength of black turnout in Detroit, the president will wash his hands of the whole affair, knowing that a bailout is not only a non-starter, but might also compete with his true priorities.  Another group of people are about to figure out how much his promises of help are worth.

Rodney King Redux?

The disconnect continues. Over the long July 4 weekend, 12 people were killed in Chicago, and 72 in total were shot. Most of these incidents involved black-on-black crime.

Yet tensions are at a boiling point in the trial of George Zimmerman, the hispanic neighborhood watchman who shot and killed 17-year-old black Trayvon Martin in February 2012. Twitter is full of calls for rioting if Zimmerman is acquitted, and threats from black males claiming they will injure or even kill a white person if there is no conviction.

Admittedly, I have not followed the trial closely. I don't want to make the same mistake lots of callers to talk radio and posters online have: spouting off without knowing the intricate details and sans a thorough understanding of how the law works. This column, however, seems to impart an interesting and unique perspective on the protagonists. The author, Daniel Flynn, was spot on, in my estimation.

Additionally, I must share a sensible bit of advice given by a talk radio caller earlier this week: It seems a basic failure by the two individuals involved to have a simple, civil conversation inadvertently led to death for Trayvon Martin.

Testimony and witnesses give conflicting accounts of what transpired on that fateful rainy night. But it seems to me that a simple exchange of intentions and identities might have prevented a tragedy from occurring.

Regardless of whether Zimmerman was stalking Martin, walking back to his vehicle, or had just exited his vehicle, here's what might have helped: If Zimmerman had stated, loud and clear, "I'm with the neighborhood watch. We've had a lot of break-ins  lately. I need you to identify yourself."

Maybe Trayvon Martin would have said something like, "My dad lives in apartment 245. I just went to the store and am heading home."

At that point, Zimmerman might have asked for ID, or said, "Okay, thanks. Have a good night," and left it at that (possibly keeping an eye on Martin as the youth walked up to an apartment and went inside).

Or maybe not. Perhaps Martin, if he was, as has been alleged,  under the influence of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, might have been paranoid. His distrust or suspicion of non-blacks might have been amplified by the hallucinogenic, and he might have lashed out verbally and/or physically.

I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to comment on the finer points of the law or the specifics of this trial. But I am disgusted with the widespread threats by blacks to riot if Zimmerman is acquitted. And I am equally appalled that, despite the fact most black murder victims are killed by other blacks, African-Americans and their so-called "leaders" (charlatans like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton) go ballistic about this case and don't say a word about black-on-black crime.

To their credit, Trayvon's parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, have pleaded for calm, regardless of the outcome.

I am very sorry about America's history of whites persecuting blacks and discriminating against them. There is no denying the ugliness of slavery, lynchings, white supremacists, the KKK, Jim Crow laws and institutional racism for centuries.

But we have made tremendous progress in just 50 years, and white Americans in 2013 are not responsible for the sins of caucasians 50 or 100 years ago.

Blatant racists and racism are rare. Many of the maladies afflicting the African-American population are self-inflicted. A sky-high out-of-wedlock birth rate, drug use and dealing, gang banging, violent and trashy rap music, and a machismo-on-steroids, chip-on-the-shoulder mentality among too many young blacks, spurred on by demagogues like Jackson & Sharpton, have wreaked havoc.

I hope and pray we don't have a Rodney King type situation, where innocent people are killed and assaulted. Sadly, our sensationalistic news media would eat it up, and left-wing scribes at the New York Times would be energized to write more of their usual dreck.

This is a sad situation, but it just seems to be the world we live in. Hold onto your hats, and fasten your seatbelts. We could be in for a rough ride, starting within a few days.

 

Obama the Paper Tiger

Republicans have lived in fear of Barack Hussein Obama for far too long. In the early days (2008-2009), they got suckered into treating him with undeserved reverence and respect, fearing harsh demonization should they dare challenge 'The One.'

The Republicans did oppose the stimulus bill and Obamacare (rightfully so, as it turns out), but they too often did not criticize the leftist architect of those worthless fiascos.

Being Republicans, they naturally underestimated the intelligence of tens of millions of Americans who know that criticizing our first black president does not make one a racist, DESPITE what the insufferable pundits and media windbags say. When it came to harshly criticizing a president who richly deserved to be challenged and occasionally chastised, they cowered like scared puppies.

But things began to change when the Tea Party organizations geared up and the Republicans trounced the Democrats in the 2010 elections (not just in Congress, but in state elections from coast to coast). Led by the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Paul Ryan (one of the most impressive budget wonks in a long time), the GOP began launching withering assaults on the celebrity-in-chief.

Mediocre presidential candidate Mitt Romney was aggressive and effective in his first debate with Obama, but let up on the gas in subsequent debates. His failure to capitalize on the administration's Benghazi fiasco should go down as one of the greatest tactical errors in the history of presidential debates. 

Now we are just six months into Obama's second term, and the wheels are falling off, big-time. For a while there, it was almost a scandal-a-minute: Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, bankrupt solar companies, crony capitalism...

Legislative and policy failures have also mounted. Last winter, the president tried using all sorts of scare tactics about how horrible budget sequestration would be should it go into effect March 1. His bluster fell on deaf ears, sequestration went into effect, and the consequences have been about as minimal as you would expect for a cut that represents about 2 percent of the overall federal budget. So much for the "meat cleaver" argument.

Obama invested a lot of political capital in getting a comprehensive gun control bill enacted, and that went down in flames. The president displayed a churlish, indignant attitude when he didn't get his way. His frequently petulant outbursts certainly do nothing to warm his opponents' hearts.

More recently, the administration delayed by one year implementation of an Obamacare mandate for employers to provide health insurance to their full-time employees. The delay is patently an effort to get the administration past the 2014 election without grave damage being done to the Democrats. This was just one of a number of concessions and reversals involving Obamacare.

These failures came after other slapdowns, including the International Olympic Committee rejecting the O-man's bid in Copenhagen in 2009 to bring the Olympics to Chicago; Russia's Vladimir Putin rejecting Obama on returning NSA contractor turncoat Edward Snowden; and Obama's buddy Mohamed Morsi (to whom Obama gave $250 million in aid) getting ousted as president of Egypt.

Compounding matters for the administration is the fact Obama's credibility is sinking rapidly as he and his henchmen have been caught lying and obfuscating so often.

Long story short, things are getting uglier by the day for this imperious and arrogant administration. The hope and change bullshit that suckered so many milions of gullible,  naive voters is proving to be as illusory as that oasis mirage in the desert to the hot and lost nomad who's dying of thirst.

If anyone, from the news media to constitutents to legislative assistants to the seemingy endless supply of clueless GOP consultants, warns GOP lawmakers not to cross Obama because "he's a nice guy" or still remains personally popular despite policy failures and a wretched economy, the lawmakers absolutely must ignore such nonsense.

Obama is a paper tiger. An arrogant, full-of-himself narcissist, true. But essentially, a feckless individual not unlike that infamous "man behind the curtain" on "The Wizard of Oz."

Fight for INdependence!

Happy Independence Day to all Posse readers. Hope you and your loved ones can find a way to celebrate this wonderful American holiday.

Developments during the past few days in Egypt underscore what we who love liberty have on our side: That powerful, God-given, innate desire for freedom and independence. It is a fervor that shall never cease.

Mohamed Morsi was elected president of Egypt in 2012, but his fealty to the Muslim Brotherhood, combined with incompetence on the economic front, doomed his presidency. He was pushed aside by the Egyptian military on Wednesday, and is under house arrest.

Morsi had replaced 30-year dictator Hosni Mubarak who, although he ruled with an iron fist and presided over his share of corruption, at least implemented some economic reforms and maintained a secular government. Christians in Egypt were protected reasonably well by the late Anwar Sadat and Mubarak, but have increasingly come under attack since Morsi assumed power.

The majority of Egyptians do not want to live under strict Islamic rules; nor will they accept economic misery as the price they must pay to live under Islamic law. They have made that quite clear since last weekend.

What happened this week in Egypt is but a more dramatic and extreme embodiment of what is happening in our own country. No, millions of Americans won't march on Washington and demand that President Obama step aside. Nor would our military push him aside. This kind of chaos is not a part of our democratic tradition.

But the yearning for liberty, and deep resentment of ham-handed big government foisting its mandates upon us, have shaped the political debate since 2009.

The Tea Party organizations were born as a result of the massive Obamacare legislation and the corrupt way in which it was enacted. The House of Representatives swung dramatically in the Republicans' favor in 2010, and all indications are it will remain in GOP hands during next year's election.

Public pressure and outrage about Obamacare's myriad broken promises have forced the administration to grant thousands of waivers delaying its implementation. Just this week, the administration announced employers that do not provide health insurance for their employees will be spared penalties until 2015. Obviously, the pressure is taking its toll, and if this were truly the wonderful law its proponents claim it is, there would be no waivers, delayed implementation and skyrocketing costs.

Americans are also rightfully outraged about abuses by the Internal Revenue Service (targeting and harassing conservative groups) and National Security Agency (aggregating mass quantities of electronic communications from tens of millions of innocent Americans).

The IRS and NSA are among many federal agencies that have the power to infringe upon our liberty and inflict unjust oppression and governmental abuse. They join Obamacare as factors that have helped wake up millions of otherwise apathetic Americans to the dangers of bloated government run amok.

On Independence Day 2013, our Founding Fathers would be dismayed if they could see how out of control the federal government has become as its unchecked growth and sinister tentacles spread out endlessly. But on the same token, they would admire the righteous indignation of millions of Americans who recognize how precious liberty is, how hard-won it has been, and how difficult it is to get it back once it's been stolen by elitist leaders.

On Independence Day 2013, let's resolve not to let the root word of independence ("depend") become an entrenched reality in our nation. We're well on the road to serfdom, and the hour is late. But not too late.

 

 

The best of all possible worlds

I remember the good old days, when George McPretzel BusHitler was president and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew how to fix our problems.  It was all so simple, so basic - theater critics like Thomas Friedman could outline the path to lasting regional peace and stability within the space of a single op-ed.

All we needed was a president open-minded enough to put these flawless plans in effect.

In 2008, we elected him and then we* re-elected him in 2012.

Finally, here was someone who knew the words to speak the policies to follow.  Now, four years later, American power has never been greater.  Iran has abandoned its nuclear program after an unprecedented rising in 2009 and is now on the path to becoming a responsible nation-state.  The mullahs retain considerable power of course, but their troubles at home have resulted in much less mayhem abroad.

The success of the "Iranian Spring" crippled Hezbullah and fatally undermind Bashar Assad, whose reign of terror has given way to an interim all-party coaltion.  Similarly, Egypt is likewise transitioning into a functioning democratic form of government.

The fulcrum for all of this is the large and enduring American military presence in Iraq.  A robust Status of Forces agreement places 10,000 of our troops and gives us access to their airfields.  This has helped strengthen both our leverage in the region and the democratic government.

Muammar Khadafi is still ruling Libya, but here too the winds of change.  The elected advisory council overseen by his son Saif may only be a fig leaf, but it could also set a true transition in motino.

Yes, things are going great because we have the right people in power.  We can all be grateful the Republican were driven from office because if they were in power, Syria be embroiled in a civil war with no good side to choose from.

Libya might be in total anarchy, perhaps threatening the life of our ambassador.

Egypt could well be reeling from social unrest so disruptive that a military coup would be seen as a positive development.

Without an American presence, Iraq would be a loose cannon, oscillating between Iranian and Saudi influence, struggling to hold itself together.  Meanwhile the Iranians would be driving forward on building their nuclear weapon. 

Thankfully, none of that is happening, because if it did, I'm sure the press would all over it.

*or the IRS.