Friday, November 21, 2014

Yeah, What He Said

Here, go read this.

It says something I've been thinking- and even saying- for the last week or so.

Let's set aside all the problems with Emperor Obama's Amnesty.  Let's pretend he did something I liked.  I dunno- an across the board tax cut, just to pick something.

That makes it no less wrong.  That makes it no less evil.  Barack Obama is not an Emperor- or, he's not supposed to be.  He is a President.  Our Founders sought for just the right term for the Chief Executive of our Nation for some time before settling on "President."  He "presides."  He is supposed to "faithfully execute" the law, see that it is Justly applied to all.

But note that he is precisely operating as an Emperor.  Even if he were going to simply ignore immigration law, that would be one (very, very bad) thing.  But it would be equally applied to all.  Instead, he enacted- by executive fiat- new law.  He did not simply say, "I'm just ignoring immigration law," his plan has requirements and prerequisites which must be met.  That's not "details about the execution of a law."  That's not "discretion."  That's authoring new law.

And the Legislature will let this stand.  The Republicans will do nothing because there's nothing they can do.  All the talk of defunding the government or shutting it down?  It won't stop this amnesty.  It won't stop an Imperial President.  Not confirming presidential appointees?  For one thing, no one will really notice that.  For another, that *also* won't stop the amnesty.

There is only one remedy- the Constitutional remedy: impeachment.  And Republicans will not do that, because the Democrats will not do that.  Democrats have welded themselves to the SCOAMT.  They hitched their wagons to him in 2008, and now it's too late.  If they turn on him now, they lose *both* the black and hispanic vote.  At least, that's their fear, and it's not entirely irrational.

Absent some real action from the Legislature- a united legislature looking to preserve the great Republic our Founders created- we have just witnessed the end of the American Experiment.

The Protection Racket

For the record, let's state that what the SCOAMT did last night was tantamount to an imperial takeover.  Apparently, now, the President and not the Legislature or even Judiciary is the arbiter of what is and is not law.

I wish I could say I was surprised.  I am outraged.  But in a sense that's like being outraged at a scorpion for stinging.  I do not believe that his character would allow him to do anything else than what he did.  Malignant Narcissism is *going* to assert its power, especially after being told it's not so powerful after all.

However, I do have more outrage for the Media.  The MFM consensus seems to be this: "Barack Obama is protecting illegals."  Yes, that is their word of choice: "protecting."  It's odd to me that they would discuss the decision not to see justice done against law-breakers as "protecting."

Would they be so sanguine if he "protected" thieves in the same way?  Murders, arsonists, identity thieves, or even dead-beat dads?

Let's say the President had said this:  "Too many Americans must live in the shadows.  Their situation requires that they live outside our normal bounds of law, but it is not their fault.  Society and their history have forced them into these shadows.  It is their poverty, their lack of education, and their lack of opportunities- a lack reinforced by law and custom- which causes them to live on the outside.  So tonight I am declaring an amnesty for all thieves.  If not for their poverty and lack of other options, they would not steal your cars, your jewelry, or your money.  It is a failure of our system- a great moral failure- to hold them accountable for their past deeds.  So I am now offering complete amnesty for any past crimes and wiping the slate clean."

Would the MFM be speaking glowingly of him "protecting" the thieves?

Yet that is just what he has done.  Illegal aliens break laws all the time.  Setting aside the ones we might normally classify as "criminal"- those who have committed heinous crimes- even the most benign routinely commit fraud and identity theft.  They drive illegally and have no insurance- and they don't drive particularly well.  The most "deserving" illegal alien broke the law first by coming across our border illegally, and then repeatedly breaks the law any time they work, receive welfare benefits, or drive.

And what of those here legally?  What of low-income, low-skilled legal aliens or citizens?  It is they who will see most of the negative effects of this.  They are the ones who will face additional competition for already low-wage jobs.  It is they who will have to face waiting rooms- for Doctors who accept Medicaid, and for Hospital Emergency Rooms- filled to overflowing, even more than now, with the children of illegals.  It is these in our society- those most already in need of "protection" who the President just threw to the wolves.

Then we consider legal aliens, especially naturalized citizens.  If this is anything other than a strongly-expended middle digit toward them, I can't see what.  Legal aliens jumped through numerous hoops- even those on temporary visas.  They pay high fees for their residency.  They know that one misstep in regards to our laws- even one relatively benign- can get them sent back to their country of origin with no chance of ever returning legally.  Those who seek naturalization wait years and pay astronomical fees to do so.

Yet now they look at what this President has just done, and realize their foolishness.  Why obey the law, why pay all those fees?  They could have just come illegally and been saved all of that.

Yet it is the illegals who are being "protected."

Monday, November 17, 2014

Lamentations of Their Women:

CNN Cries over GOP Wave


So, continuing the leftist post-election trend going back to at least 2000 in Florida, CNN has decided that the only way the GOP won this election was through cheating.  How?  By violating campaign finance laws, in spirit if not in fact.

Their logic goes something like this: Campaign finance laws forbid specific candidate campaigns from coordinating with super-PACs and other non-candidate organizations.  "Someone" was tweeting what looked like poling data.  Since every Dick, Jane, and Harry wouldn't have been able to decode the tweet, it MUST be collusion.

Now they don't know who "Someone" was.  And by their own admission, they didn't find out before the accounts were deleted.  That would seem to be a hole in their case, but maybe that's just me.

Now, there are lots of problems with the whole article, so you should read it for yourself.  But I was taken by two things.  The first was the almost reflexive "they cheated!" reaction.

This article took some time to research.  The twitter accounts they reference were not widely known, so this wasn't something that was "general knowledge."  They had to have been looking for it.

Yet it is not Republicans who are known campaign finance law violators, unlike several prominent Democrats, the President among them (remember 2008 and not checking if donations were foreign?  Making a campaign speech on foreign soil?  Yeah- not legal.)

Projection, as they say, is not just a river in Egypt.

The other thing that I noticed was they spend a whole lot of time saying, basically, "Those wascawy Wepubwicans!  They used Twitter effectivwy! That must be iweagle!"  And then, for support they go to leftists.

Case in point, this quote:

"It might not be legal.  It's a cutting edge practice that, to my knowledge, the Federal Election Commission has never before addressed to explicitly determine its legality or permissibility."

That comes from one Paul S. Ryan, cited as "senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center."

CNN references the Campaign Legal Center as "a nonpartisan organization," but, this being CNN, I figured I'd double-check their math.  If you follow that link above, it goes to the CLC's "Election Center."  Among their blurbs are "what the Court got wrong in [Citizen's United]," and bragging that their president played "an incredibly important role" as the "'personal lawyer' to comedian Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central's 'The Colbert Report.'"

Does anyone seriously think that a center which sees being the "personal lawyer" for the Colbert Report and opposing Citizen's United is "nonpartisan?"  Seriously?

But the best part of that quote might be the idea that the FEC should have to rule on whether something is "explicitly" legal.  Umm... that's not how the law works.  Something is legal unless it is "explicitly" illegal.  Murder?  Explicitly illegal.  We don't have to ask if any given killing is "explicitly" legal.  It is legal (assumed innocent) until it is proven to be illegal.

This is how leftists work.  Does anyone seriously think we'd be hearing anything about this if it had been Democrats and they had won an historic majority?

Perhaps the best part is the end of the article, wherein CNN acknowledges that, yes, this is probably legal.  I'll leave with that quote (emphasis mine):

Despite the questionable nature of the Twitter communications, experts doubt the FEC will do much to act. Members of the commission have been deadlocked along party lines for years and attorneys for these groups often develop legal arguments before engaging in such practices to avoid acting outside the bounds of the law, Ryan said. 
"In many instances, we have very sophisticated political players with really good lawyers who know where the legal lines are and know where to push them to their client's advantage," he said.