Issues
It’s a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Washington that the only occasions on which the United States Constitution is invoked with any reverence by the political establishment is when it appears to support the expansion of federal power. The topic du jour in the capital is the 14th Amendment, and whether it authorizes President Obama, in effect, to ignore the congressionally-imposed debt ceiling and instruct the Treasury to issue new debt to pay for old. For the record, the 14th Amendment’s Section Four states:
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
JBS CEO Art Thompson's topics this week: American Independence, some want to eliminate it; Sleazy attacks against patriots persist.
The other day I was having dinner at a friend's house and was chatting with his 12-year-old daughter who attends a local public school. I asked her how she was doing, and she told me that she hated school -— not merely disliked school, but hated it.
I told her I thought I knew why she hated school -— because it was boring. "Yes," she replied. It was boring. And then I said, "And you're probably not learning much also."
She wanted to know what I meant by that. So I asked her to name the first three wars that the United States was involved with. She got the first one right, the Revolutionary War. But the only other war she could think of was the Civil War, and she had no idea when that took place.
Indiana has recently passed a pro-life reform bill, which contains abortion limits and revokes funding for Planned Parenthood. Predictably, it has incurred outrage from Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and other related groups.
Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, stated:
We applaud Indiana’s approach to taking action to stop the flow of federal taxpayer funds to the nation’s largest abortion provider. With Planned Parenthood already receiving more than $350 million dollars a year in federal taxpayer funds, Indiana is sending a powerful message to Washington — it’s time to put a halt to sending federal funds to Planned Parenthood.
On July 4, 1776, after months of heated debate, representatives of the Continental Congress voted unanimously that “these United Colonies are and of right ought to be Free and Independent States.”
Thirteen colonies voted to become something new: the United States of America. All they had to do was to win their independence from a government that would consider them traitors.
Fifty-six men bravely affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. What sort of men were they? And what became of them?
The American Center for Law and Justice ACLJ), a conservative legal advocacy group, is targeting Delta Airlines’ new partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines, charging that the venture serves to further discriminatory policies the Saudi passenger carrier has in place that targets Jews, Christians, and women. In January Delta announced its partnership with the Saudi airline, with Delta’s vice president, Charlie Pappas, saying he was “honored that Saudi Arabian [Airlines] has chosen to link its future growth and success with Delta and our SkyTeam partners, while bringing our alliance greater access to destinations across the Middle East.”
But as reported by World Net Daily, the partnership, part of Delta’s “SkyTeam Alliance,” may require the U.S. carrier “to ban Jews and holders of Israeli passports from boarding flights from New York or Washington bound for Jeddah.” The move prompted an outcry from ACLJ and others that the airline is participating in discriminatory Muslim-based “Shariah” law — all for the sake of a business deal.
The full-blown insanity of feminism may have found its fullest expression at a Swedish pre-school, according to a news report, where the teachers have banned the use of "him" and "her" to describe boys and girls and men and women.
The leftist school, the Daily Mail reports, has adopted a "genderless" vocabulary, it says, so the kidlets are not confined to traditional stereotypes.
The school, not surprisingly, is called "Egalia." Women run it. Their goal? To let the kids become whatever and whoever they want, regardless of the equipment with which God endowed them. And banning "him" and "her" is just one of the many ways the school ensures that its students don't think boys are boys and girls are girls.
Rapists have groomed 2,000 children for sex in England, according to a report from the country’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.
The report follows recent stories in the Daily Mail and Telegraph about the “Asian” gangs that are turning girls into sex slaves and prostitutes using drugs and alcohol.
The CEOPC reports that it must be careful in describing the ethnicity of the criminals because it lacks the data to draw conclusions.
Central to the politics of states with democratically-constituted governments is the notion that all sovereignty resides in “the People.” In no place and at no time has this idea been more prevalent than in contemporary America. It is an idea that both Democrats and Republicans peddle furiously.
In spite of its popularity, however, it is a fiction. Worse, it is an invidious fiction.
First of all, it needs to be noted that all talk of “the American People” simultaneously reflects an abysmal ignorance of the kind of order — a Constitutional Republic — that our Founding Fathers left us while further undermining that order. No member of the founding generation would ever have thought to describe the inhabitants of these United States as a single people. On no reading of America at any time during its history could the citizenry be interpreted in terms of the monolith suggested by the language of “the People.”
Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) joined with Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) on Tuesday in announcing their plan to reform Medicare before it goes “broke and take[s] our government down with it.” Noting that Medicare beneficiaries take almost three times more out of Medicare than they ever put in, Lieberman is persuaded that the flawed welfare-state program can be reformed.
With substantial increases in premiums and extensions of age of eligibility, Lieberman said their plan would save $600 billion over the next 10 years, and reduce Medicare’s unfunded liability from $85.6 trillion to under $75 trillion. Depending upon income levels, individuals would pay into Medicare at least $12,500 a year, with high income earners paying $22,500 a year. And Medicare’s eligibility age would be pushed out to 67, starting in the year 2025. He noted that there is something in his proposal for everyone to dislike:
