Saturday, June 30, 2012

FAST AND FURIOUS: DEAD FISH STINK FROM THE HEAD DOWN

 30 Jun 2012, 1:20 PM PDT

Back in 2009, I was in Del Rio, Texas, attending a Texas Border Sherriff’s Coaliton conference. During one particular Q and A session, the Obama liaison from the Department of Homeland Security kept focusing on stopping the southern flow of guns and money into Mexico.

That felt odd. Yes, stopping the flow of money back into Mexico would hurt the Mexican drug cartels. And yes, some weapons purchased from US gun stores were ending up in Mexico. However, hand grenades, RPGs, explosives and the vast amount of military hardware that the cartels were using were not available at Walmart, not even in Texas. The cartels have an unlimited supply of cash. They can purchase whatever they desire on the international arms black market.
The folks that didn’t have sufficient cash and resources were the good guys--the men and women in US law enforcement that are tasked with holding the line. However, the sheriffs were optimistically cautioned, there will soon be stimulus money that will be available to you... for the programs to stop southern traffic.
Now at that time, border sheriffs like Arvin West from Hudspeth County were actively petitioning the Obama administration for access to military surplus equipment, which would aid tremendously in their war with the Mexican drug cartels.
Those requests were flatly ignored. Odd, because at the same time, President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, William Hoover, Diane Feinstein and others in the Obama administration were aggressively pushing the “90% of all guns used by the drug cartels are coming from US gun stores” mantra.
That was a joke to the sheriffs on the border, and with good reason. It was not true.
Not even close. Although the “90% of all guns” claim was effectively debunked by FOX News' William La Jeunesse; the Obama mantra continued long after anyone was even paying attention.
I don’t know, maybe it is the old adage, “If enough people repeat a lie often enough it will become accepted as the truth.”
So anyhow, then comes Operation Fast and Furious. The DOJ puts guns into the hands of Cartel assassins. Agent Brian Terry is murdered. Mexican citizens are murdered. President Obama asserts executive privilege, and Sheriff West still hasn’t received his military surplus.
Something is rotten in Denmark, and it’s not just fish.

Obama's incredible shrinking security cooperation with Israel

ISRAEL MATZAV
by Carl in Jerusalem
Saturday, June 30, 2012


 Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.

The baby's name is.... I cannot tell you yet because this post is being prepared before the Sabbath....

The Obama administration and its supporters in the Leftist chattering classes (people like Jeffrey Goldberg) love to tell us how Obama has 'enhanced security cooperation' with Israel to 'unprecedented levels.' In fact, anytime anyone mentions the fact that Obama has abused Prime Minister Netanyahu, become the only American President to call for an Israeli return to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, and been only the second American President (after his idol, Jimmy Carter) to declare Israeli 'settlements' 'illegal,' the response is to ignore the charge, and to talk about how Obama has 'enhanced security cooperation' with Israel to 'unprecedented levels.' Shoshana Bryen reports that security cooperation is shrinking quickly. And one can only imagine what would happen to it if God forbid there is a second Obama term.

Turkey bluntly objects to sharing intelligence informationwith Israel – specifically the intelligence from NATO's Turkey-based, U.S.-run X-Band early warning radars. At a NATO meeting in Brussels, Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz told reporters, "We need to trust states' words. This is a NATO facility and it shouldn't be used beyond the scope of this purpose." The "state" in question was clearly the U.S., and "beyond the scope" referred to sharing information with Israel. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta replied, "Clearly, the NATO members are the ones that will participate in the program and access information produced by the missile defense system." In a meeting in February, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen parroted the Turkish formula. "We do stress that data within this missile defense system are not shared with a third country. Data are shared within our alliance, among allies, it is a defensive system to protect the populations of NATO allies," Rasmussen said.

Agreeing publicly to keep intelligence information from Israel – a more likely target of Iran than Europe/NATO – at the behest of Turkey is a serious diminution of the U.S.-Israel security relationship as well as the Israel-NATO relationship, and elevates Turkey to the role of spoiler.

According to one source, Turkey assured Iran that the X-Band radars were not aimed at the Islamic Republic and that a Turkish military officer was in charge of receiving the intelligence information. Here the U.S. appears to have balked, telling Israel that Americans were in charge of the information, but not reassuring Israel on the subject of information sharing. Further, since the station in Turkey also acquires information from the X-Band radar based in Israel, it raises Israeli concerns that Turkey will have access to security information from Israeli skies.

Turkey also demanded the exclusion of Israel from Anatolian Eagle, a NATO exercise conducted every few years to enhance aerial cooperation. The Turkish decision caused Italy and the U.S. to pull out, and the exercise was canceled – "postponed," according to US sources as was the planned U.S.-Israel missile defense exercise, Austere Challenge, which would have had a strong intelligence-sharing component.

NATO's snub of Israel at the meeting in Chicago in May was simply waved away: "Israel is neither a participant in ISAF nor in KFOR (Afghanistan and Kosovo missions)," said Rasmussen, even as he acknowledged that 13 other"partner" nations would attend because, "In today's world security challenges know no borders, and no country or alliance can deal with most of them on their own."

It was said then that Turkey used its NATO veto. But Israel was similarly not invited to the inaugural meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum in Istanbul -- not a NATO meeting.

Coming on the heels of Eager Lion 2012, a Special Operations exercise involving 12,000 troops from 19 countries (excluding Israel and including several countries at war with Israel), the counterterrorism forum was designed by Secretary of State Clinton to "build the international architecture for dealing with 21st century terrorism." The State Department was responsible for the invitations, so Turkey had no veto. If the Administration had wanted to make the point that Israel is a valued partner in counterterrorism activities, it could have insisted that Israel be there or else moved the meeting.

...

Turkey is riding high with the Administration right now; and President Obama welcomed the Turkish Prime Minister in March as an "outstanding partner and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues" -- including, apparently, in reducing relations with Israel.
Read the whole thing. So much for Obama's claims of 'unprecedented' security cooperation with Israel. I wonder whether Obama's Best Friend Forever is raising money in Turkey for Obama's reelection campaign. What could go wrong?


posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:28 PM

Israel: Holocaust Survivors: A Celebration of LIfe

Israel crowns 'Miss Holocaust Survivor'
  • Mideast Israel Holoca_Pata(6).jpg
    June 28, 2012: Hava Hershkovitz, right, a Holocaust survivor and winner of a beauty pageant is congratulated by another participant, in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. (AP2012)


Grinning and waving, 14 women who survived the horrors of World War II paraded Thursday in an unusual pageant, vying for the honor of being crowned Israel's first "Miss Holocaust Survivor."
Billed by organizers as a celebration of life, the event also stirred controversy. In a country where millions have been touched by the Holocaust, many argued that judging aging women who had suffered so much on physical appearance was inappropriate, and even offensive.
"It sounds totally macabre to me," said Colette Avital, chairwoman of Israel's leading Holocaust survivors' umbrella group. "I am in favor of enriching lives, but a one-time pageant masquerading (survivors) with beautiful clothes is not what is going to make their lives more meaningful."
Pageant organizer Shimon Sabag rejected the criticism, saying the winners were chosen based on their personal stories of survival and rebuilding their lives after the war, and physical beauty was only a tiny part of the competition.
"They feel good together. They are having a good time and laughing in the rehearsals," said Sabag, director of Yad Ezer L'Haver, or Helping Hand, which assists needy Holocaust survivors and organized the pageant.
"The fact that so many wanted to participate proves that it's a good idea."
Nearly 300 women from across Israel registered for the competition and contestants were whittled down to the 14 finalists who appeared Thursday.
The contest, part of Helping Hand's annual "cultural" night, included a lavish dinner and music at a Haifa reception hall. Some 600 people attended, including two Cabinet ministers, Moshe Kahlon and Yossi Peled, himself a Holocaust survivor.
The women, ranging in age from 74 to 97, clearly enjoyed themselves. Wearing black dresses, earrings and necklaces, and sporting blue-and-white numbered sashes, they grinned and waved as they were introduced to the adoring audience. Music played as the contestants walked along a red carpet, introduced themselves and described their memories of World War II.
"I have the privilege to show the world that Hitler wanted to exterminate us and we are alive. We are also enjoying life. Thank God it's that way," said Esther Libber, a 74-year-old runner-up who fled her home in Poland as a child, hid in a forest and was rescued by a Polish woman. She said she lost her entire immediate family.
A four-judge panel consisting of three former beauty queens and a geriatric psychiatrist who specializes in treating Holocaust survivors chose the winner. Hava Hershkovitz, a soon-to-be 79-year-old, was banished from her home in Romania in 1941 and sent to a detention camp in the Soviet Union for three years. Today, she lives in an assisted living home run by Helping Hand.
"This place is full of survivors. It puts us at the center of attention so people will care. It's not easy at this age to be in a beauty contest, but we're all doing it to show that we're still here," the silver-haired Hershkovitz said.
Wearing a glittering tiara, she was joined by her granddaughter, Keren Hazan. "I'm very proud of her because she's the most beautiful woman in the room tonight," Hazan said.
In addition to the contestants' accounts of surviving Nazi ghettos and concentration camps, their later contributions to their communities were also considered, Sabag said. Physical appearance was maybe "10 percent" of the criteria, he said, though a cosmetics company was recruited to help the women dress up for the occasion.
"We always tell them to dress well and look good. To think positive and to take care of themselves," Sabag said. "Always look at life with a smile and continue to live."
The thought that physical appearance could even remotely be a factor rubbed some the wrong way. Avital, of the Holocaust survivors' umbrella group, criticized the cosmetics company, saying it was using Holocaust survivors in a cheap marketing stunt to promote their products.
"Why use a beauty contest to show that these people survived and that they're brave?" wondered Lili Haber, a daughter of Holocaust survivors who heads an Israeli organization that assists survivors from Poland. "I think it's awful. I think it's something a decent person shouldn't even think about."
The Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany oversaw the systematic slaughter of 6 million European Jews, plays a unique role in Israeli society. The country gained independence in the wake of the Holocaust, serving as a refuge for hundreds of thousands of people who survived the genocide.
Nearly 200,000 aging survivors live in Israel today, and the country's annual Holocaust Day is one of the most solemn occasions on the calendar. Restaurants and cinemas close, and the country comes to a standstill as sirens wail for two minutes. Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, frequently make references to the Holocaust when discussing the threat they believe a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to the Jewish state.
Thursday's contest was among the many unconventional beauty pageants that have sprouted up over the years. The war-torn countries of Angola and Cambodia have held "Miss Landmine" contests for survivors of land mine explosions, Star Trek fans enjoy the "Miss Klingon Empire" contest in Atlanta, and plus-sized women in Thailand compete for the honor of "Miss Jumbo Queen." There are also a senior citizens' pageants in the U.S.
Gal Mor, editor of the popular Israeli blog "Holes in the Net," said Thursday's pageant was well-intentioned but misguided.
"Why should a decayed, competitive institution that emphasizes women's appearance be used as inspiration, instead of allowing them to tell their story without gimmicks?" he wrote. "This is one step short of 'Survivor-Holocaust' or 'Big Brother Auschwitz.' It leaves a bad taste. Holocaust survivors should be above all this."
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/29/israel-crowns-miss-holocaust-survivor/?test=latestnews#ixzz1zJ6Kjugj 
Bee's Note:
When I first read the title to this article, my first thought was "You've got to be kidding me!"  Why?


Everything surrounding memories of the Holocaust are deeply serious and solemn occasions.  However, after reading this report I understand what a remarkable testimony the survivors give, through their memories and stories of survival and while they may not have said it, their smiles and joy today is another way to tell the world "Never Forget".  


Never forget how an evil ideology spread across nations, led by a sick-minded, wicked man who actually did not have to do much to convince millions throughout Europe to use the Jews as scapegoats for all the ills in this old world.  I have read many books on the Holocaust and what sticks in my mind most is that while Hitler stirred up the people into a frenzy of hatred, the hatred had to be in the hearts of the people to be so foolishly convinced that the Jews were responsible for everyone else's problems.


"Never Forget" has a sound of hollowness today.  I think of the history of WWII and then, listen to that same hatred today ...... apparently, many have forgotten.  


Today, like yesteryear, the Jews are continually blamed for a lack of peace in the Middle East.  Leaders from around the world think it is their obligation to make demands of the Israelis as to where they can build their homes in their own land - the Land of Israel is the only Jewish nation in this world.  Even in the West, we have "leaders" who refuse to accept Jerusalem as Israel's capital city - the City of King David.  Has any other nation in the world had a say in what a nation determines to be their capital city?!


Israel has sought peace since the Jews first returned to their own land.  She has signed many a peace treaty, offered an olive branch to all her enemies, given up land for peace and yet, the missiles and bombs are still pointed towards her citizens, from neighboring countries along her borders.  She is surrounded by enemies who refuse to accept her right to exist.  Israel has given up much in the past 60 plus years, but she cannot give up her soul.  If the truth be told, for all her contributions to this world, the world turns its back on the one nation, the one democracy in the Middle East who must endure the terrorist acts of evil men/leaders on an on-gong basis. (Please not America's flag burning alongside Israel's - in Gaza, by Palestinian Hamas terrorists - the same terrorists the U.S. continues to support with MILLIONS of DOLLARS in aid.)


Is it too much for this world to remember and "never forget"?  


The ladies involved in this contest have demonstrated to the world that they were able to rebuild their lives - while SIX MILLION Jews died under the hands of a propaganda machine, led by wickedness, greed, hatefulness, and pumped up crowds that were willing to accept a lie.  


I can only suggest that the next time crowds gather, listen to their speeches.  What are they saying?  Does it sound reasonable to you?  Why not do this when our own politicians speak - one tiny seed of hatred towards anyone, by a "leader" of a nation, can blossom into division among its people and lead, once again, into another dark day in history.  While it is true that the economy is the major issue of most Americans today, if we do not also pay attention to our country's foreign policies .... the economy will be the least of our priorities.  In the last 4 years, this administration has lost the respect of our allies, while it seeks to honor America's enemies.  Intentional "leaks" from this administration that whispers in the ears of our enemies is not the way to build up the United States of America.  .........  Just saying ...........











Music Video: Leonard Cohen Cary Grant - Enjoy!



Bee;s Note:
I came across this video last night and it reminded me of "simpler" days of my youth.  Days when movies were a pleasure to watch, as it did not include so much of the violence that is a mark of today's "modern" movie pictures.  The folks who put this video together were very creative and compliment Leonard Cohen's song. It is a delight to share it with all of you.

Uploaded by  on Dec 31, 2010
by vimeo from cgmtv
thank you cgmtv this is great work..
.
:)


Friday, June 29, 2012

What just happened to the rule of law?

June 28, 2012

By Alan Caruba


Following the Obamacare decision, The Heartland Institute's Maureen Martin, a Senior Fellow for Legal Affairs, said, "Today's decision will go down in infamy. It marks the moment when we all lost our freedom because the Supreme Court drew a road map to guide those dedicated to imposing a totalitarian, statist government on the American people."

A Heartland colleague, Peter Ferrara, a member of the bar of the Supreme Court and a Senior Fellow for Entitlement and Budget Policy, said "The Supreme Court of the United States just endorsed the most fundamental dishonesty of our politics today. The President intimidated Chief Justice John Roberts like Hugo Chavez intimidates the Venezuelan Supreme Court. The rule of law is now dead. The American people have only one more chance now to save their country." Heartland is a non-profit, free market think tank.

A lot of Americans may begin to feel like the Jews who lived in Nazi Germany. On September 15, 1935, the Nazi government passed the Nuremberg laws. They were intended to make life in Germany so unpleasant that it would force them to emigrate. Those who could escaped what would later materialize as the Holocaust, the deliberate extermination of all the Jews of Europe. One of them was Albert Einstein who found sanctuary in the United States.

To give you a taste of what it was like, the Reichstag's Nuremburg laws prohibited marriage between Jews and Aryan Germans. Intercourse between Jews and "subjects of German or kindred blood" was forbidden. Jews were forbidden to fly the Reich and national flag. It did not take long for Jewish teachers, lawyers, and physicians to be stripped of their right to work.

What does that have to do with Obamacare? Americans who could rely on the political system to moderate and even reduce taxation now know that the December 28, 2012 Supreme Court has ruled that Congress may tax anything, including behavior. Americans no longer are free to determine what they wish to purchase or not. Either they follow the dictate of the federal government or they will be fined.

Obamacare has now transformed the United States into a police state.

Twenty-seven U.S. States joined together to oppose Obamacare and they and the other twenty-three now know that they are no longer separate and sovereign republics, but must yield to the federal government's demand that they create "exchanges" where health insurance must be purchased.

Arizona has already discovered that the federal government will not permit its law enforcement authorities to participate in protecting its border with Mexico despite the havoc illegal immigration has wreaked on that State. Other States have encountered the same response.

America's older generation, covered by Medicare, will discover that panels of bureaucrats will determine the extent of the health care they can receive. They will discover as those in England's health system that the wait to be admitted to a hospital can result in death.

The younger generation will suffer as well. As Paul T. Conway, the president of Generation Opportunity, a non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks to mobilize young adults who are dissatisfied with the status quo to create a better future for themselves, has said:

"President Obama's health care law stands as one of the largest tax increases in American history. It will be paid by young Americans whose dreams and plans for the future have already been derailed by failed policies that have denied their access to full-time, meaningful jobs in their chosen career paths."

"Young Americans," said Conway, "know they will pay the true costs of President Obama's legislation — over a trillion dollars more in federal spending, more waste and fraud, increased American debt, and the inability to keep or choose healthcare plans that best suit their needs as individuals."

Young, old, and all other Americans will wake now to an America that they have not known, nor ever conceived could exist; a nation in which the rule of law no longer is a guarantee of the Constitution's limits and separation of powers.

© Alan Caruba



Alan Caruba

Best known these days as a commentator on issues ranging from environmentalism to energy, immigration to Islam, Alan Caruba is the author of two recent books, "Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy" and "Warning Signs" — both collections of his commentaries since 2000 and both published by Merril Press of Bellevue, Washington.

His commentaries are posted on many leading news and opinion websites, and frequently picked up and shared by blogs as well. Caruba has his own popular daily blog athttp://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.






Obamacare: 'Things are now up for Grabs'

June 29, 2012

PJ MEDIA

By Clarice Feldman 

[This week, Clarice's Pieces is appearing on Friday.]
"[I]n the 1980s, the political psychologist Philip E. Tetlock began systematically quizzing 284 political experts - most of whom were political science Ph.D.'s - on dozens of basic questions, like whether a country would go to war, leave NATO or change its boundaries or a political leader would remain in office. His book "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?" won the A.P.S.A.'s prize for the best book published on government, politics or international affairs.
Professor Tetlock's main finding? Chimps randomly throwing darts at the possible outcomes would have done almost as well as the experts."
You could pretty much say this about the Obamacare case. Hundreds of pages of  analysis and predictions and few if any reflected the final, rather surprising outcome: Four ,and potentially five justices  if one reads Roberts carefully, have for the first time since the FDR court recognized there are substantial limitations on the power of Congress to regulate behavior under the cloak of the Constitution's Commerce Clause and, just as significantly, seven justices determined that Congress cannot blackmail the states into accepting new federal programs by threatening to cut off funding  under existing programs should they refuse to accept the expanded programs.
(a) First looks at the opinion suggest the gloom of many conservatives is not warranted: The decision has much to commend it.
As a starter, Justice Roberts' statement:  " It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." is as clear a statement of conservative  thought about the Court's role as one might find in a Supreme Court case of recent vintage.
On the individual mandate, Roberts joined with the left wing of the Court and sustained it but only after finding it was not authorized by the Commerce Clause and was justified only if one considered it a tax on inactivity-in this case the failure to secure insurance.
Larry Solum explains why what might appear to be mere sophistry is far more significant:
Had the Court struck down the mandate, it would have clearly represented a tectonic shift in American constitutional law.  In the extraordinarily unlikely event that there had been a majority opinion authored by one of the four justices from the left wing of the Court, the decision would have cemented (at least for a time) the most common academic understanding of Congress's power under Article One of the Constitution.  Roughly, that understanding is that Congress has plenary legislative power, limited only by the carve outs created by the Supreme Court's decisions in Lopez and Morrison. [snip]
For many years, some legal scholars had advanced an alternative reading of the key cases uphold New Deal legislation.  On this alternative reading, the New Deal decisions were seen as representing the high water mark of federal power.  Although the New Deal represented a massive expansion of the role of the federal government, it actually left a huge amount of legislative power to the states.  On the alternative gestalt, the power of the federal government is limited to the enumerated powers in Section Eight of Article One, plus the New Deal additions.  These are huge, but not plenary and unlimited.
Today, it became clear that four of the Supreme Court's nine justices reject the academic consensus.  As Justice Kennedy states in his dissent joined by Scalia, Thomas, and Alito:
"In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."
The alternative gestalt is no longer an outlier, a theory endorsed by a few eccentric professors and one odd justice of the Supreme Court.  And because Justice Roberts believes that the mandate is not a valid exercise of the commerce clause (but is valid if interpreted as a tax), he has left open the possibility that there is a fifth justice who endorses the alternative gestalt.
We are only minutes into a long process of digesting the Health Care Decision.  But in my opinion, one thing is clear.  Things are now "up for grabs" in a way that no one anticipated when the saga of the constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act began.
Jay Cost ,a political analyst I highly respect, follows suit: 
[I]f you were more concerned about the qualitative expansion in the power of the government that the  bill represented, it was definitely a win.
First, the Roberts Court put real limits on what the government can and cannot do. For starters, it restricted the limits of the Commerce Clause, which does not give the government the power to create activity for the purpose of regulating it. This is a huge victory for those of us who believe that the Constitution is a document which offers a limited grant of power.
Second, the Roberts Court also threw out a portion of the Medicaid expansion. States have the option of withdrawing from the program without risk of losing their funds. This is another major victory for conservatives who cherish our system of dual sovereignty. This was also a big policy win for conservatives; the Medicaid expansion was a major way the Democrats hid the true cost of the bill, by shifting costs to the states, but they no longer can do this.
Politically, Obama will probably get a short-term boost from this, as the media will not be able to read between the lines and will declare him the winner. But the victory will be short-lived. The Democrats were at pains not to call this a tax because it is inherently regressive: the wealthy overwhelmingly have health insurance so have no fear of the mandate. But now that it is legally a tax, Republicans can and will declare that Obama has slapped the single biggest tax on the middle class in history, after promising not to do that.
Conservatives have a shot at getting the best of both worlds: having the Supreme Court use Obamacare as a way to limit federal power while also using the democratic process to overturn the law. I didn't think we could have one without the other, but now maybe we can.
If Obama loses in November, that is...
(b) What Next?
The ball is now in the Republicans' court. They've already scheduled a repeal vote on July 11. Once before the Democrat-controlled Senate was able to scotch the effort by threat of filibuster. Had the mandate stood as mandate they could do so again. But now that it's a tax, it can be passed by a simple majority. And if it is, the president will be forced before the election to veto a repeal  of a law  a majority of the voters keep indicating they want repealed.
Every Democrat running in November will be forced to defend what amounts to the biggest tax increase-about $400 billion dollars-in American history, a tax largely levied against the young and the middle class who don't normally carry health insurance.
Professor Ann Althouse sets out the state of play for Obama and his party:
I have said repeatedly that Obama would be worse off if Obamacare were upheld, but what I'm really seeing is how bad it is for him with the mandate declared a tax.
Remember the Democrats got the statute passed by insisting it was not a tax. Now, we learn it is only constitutional because it is a tax. That's got to hurt politically.
ADDED: Romney has at least 3 big arguments:
1. Obama imposed a huge new tax on working people.
2. Obama deceived the American people by saying it was not a tax, when it was.
3. The law made it look like money would go to insurance companies - in the form of new premiums - that would keep premiums low as the companies were required to take on people with pre-existing conditions, but now we find out that the money is really going to go to the federal government. [ADDED: So get ready for your premiums to spiral up and/or for insurance companies to be ruined.]
(c) In the end Republicans have a sharp new limitation on the expansion of federal power,  a very good political platform to run against the President and the Democrats , and as  Erick Erickson notes we have both Justice Roberts and the terminally squishy, retiring Olympia Snow to thank for this:
It seems very, very clear to me in reviewing John Roberts' decision that he is playing a much longer game than us and can afford to with a life tenure. And he probably just handed Mitt Romney the White House.
*A friend points out one other thing - go back to 2009. Olympia Snowe was the deciding vote to get Obamacare out of the Senate Committee. Had she voted no, we'd not be here now.
Did you really ever think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and Barack Obama could outsmart and outplay Justice Roberts? Really?

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/obamacare_things_are_now_up_for_grabs.html#ixzz1zA2kiLAN



Americans Respond to Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare - Part 2





FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
June 28, 2012
 Contact: Angela Melvin
Communications Director
(202) 731-1778

Rep. West Statement on the United States Supreme Court Healthcare Ruling
 
(WASHINGTON)--- Congressman Allen West (R-FL) released this statement today after the United States Supreme Court announced it has ruled to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

"The United States Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by extending the power of the United States Congress to tax Americans' behavior.  This is a sad day for Americans, as they will be taxed to pay for benefits they may not need or want as part of the insurance they are forced to buy. With this decision, Congress has been granted infinite taxation power, and there are no longer any limits on what the federal government can tax its citizens to do.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will hit the middle class especially hard, as hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost as businesses try to avoid the penalties and costs created by the healthcare law. The healthcare law will cost trillions of dollars, raise costs for employers and create huge incentives for them to drop health insurance.

Benjamin Franklin did indeed state, 'In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.'However, Dr. Franklin never envisioned the federal government would use its power of taxation to punish people for not purchasing health care.  Today, individual sovereignty in America has been defeated."
 
###
From THE BLAZE:    READ HOW LAWMAKERS ARE REACTING TO OBAMACARE RULING (INCLUDING NEW PROMISE TO REPEAL)
From Front Page Magazine:  Understanding the ObamaCare Ruling
From The Western Center for Journalism:    Why Obamacare Ruling Is Good For Tea Party
From THE ULSTERMAN REPORTWHITE HOUSE INSIDER: OBAMACARE …”Now we are truly ready to fight.”

From ABC NEWS:  Obama in 2009: The Individual Mandate Is Not a Tax




And there you have it folks - a brief overview of what is being said and posted all over the Net, shortly after the Supreme Court Decision made it possible for Obama to become the first President in United States history to put a dagger through the very heart of America, as Americans realize they just lost their freedom - freedom of choice - as Big Government has decide they know better how to run each of our lives and "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" almost appears to be meaningless under yesterday's Supreme Court Decision.





Thursday, June 28, 2012

Americans Respond to Supreme Court Decision on Obamacare - Part 1



After recovering from the initial shock of hearing the decision of the Supreme Court announced shortly after !0:00 AM this morning, I went to my Facebook (which was smoking hot!) from Americans voicing their opinions and adding cartoons, videos and links to other American Conservatives - and that took just moments before I realized we're not alone in our thoughts and feelings about this latest and probably the biggest lie told to the American people by Obama and his entire administration!

Scared Monkey's reminds us (just in case anyone has forgotten the date) the Democrats perpetrated "a treachery that will be their undoing".  
Mark the date, December 24, 2009 while Americans prepared for the Christmas holiday 
There is a reason why the American public overwhelming oppose this health care reform bill. People do want reform … they do not want this mockery of reform. How do we know that this bill is terrible? Why would so many Democrats make sleazy deals with Harry Reid to pass the bill if they did not like it on face value?
If the bill was so good for the American people, Democrats, Republicans and Independents would have voted for this bill without the need of a pay off. How do we know it’s not health care reform …maybe because honest Democrats are saying so … ‘A Democrat’s (Rep. Louise M. Slaughter) view from the House: Senate bill isn’t health reform.’ NRO says “slaughter” the bill. Sadly, it did not occur this morning as America’s Obamacare nightmare continues.
As Sarh Palin stated over night … the passage of this Senate health care bill will awake a sleeping giant that has not been seen in recent history.
Tomorrow’s Health care Takeover vote Will cause the sleeping giant to awaken and take action. “Average” Americans will take action as light shines on big government growth and corruption.
So what was the Democrats rush to pass a bill at Americans hate? Could it be that cowardly Dems did not want to face the American people like they did in Town Hall meetings during the August break? Ya Think! .... Scared Monkey's
Christmas Eve, while Christians were celebrating the holiest night of the (Christian) year and attending church services, spending time with families, their were men and women in Washington behind closed doors, voting on a "bill" they admitted they had not read - a bill that would forever change and undermine the liberties of Americans.  The Jewish families had just finished celebrating Hanukkah the week before and in spite of the fact that Obama claims America is no longer a "Judeo-Christian" nation (he voiced his opinion in Turkey, at a press conference), millions of Americans disagree with his concept of what America stands for, with, and under (U.S.Constitution).  This was just one of thousands of comments (lies) Obama did not fear voicing to the world, in front of our enemies, while attempting to re-write America's history.  And, because he forced the Obamacare vote on Christmas Eve, before allowing Congress to go home to their families to also celebrate the holidays, is just one example of how little traditions held dear by Americans means nothing to Obama.  This bill on Obamacare was cursed from the very evening it was passed!  Goodness, do you remember when Obama wanted to tax even the Christmas trees?!  The story of Scrooge has nothing over Obama's dirty tricks, sneaky betrayals, and lying hypocrisy. 
Ah, but now that I am over the shock of this morning's announcement, there is a report I want to share with all of you - one that will inspire us to continue this fight to the voting booths come Novemeber.  Here it is, written by I.M. Citizen:
Chief Justice Roberts Is A Genius
Posted on  by I.M. Citizen

Before you look to do harm to Chief Justice Roberts or his family, it’s important that you think carefully about the meaning – the true nature — of his ruling on Obama-care. The Left will shout that they won, that Obama-care was upheld and all the rest. Let them.
It will be a short-lived celebration.
Here’s what really occurred — payback. Yes, payback for Obama’s numerous, ill-advised and childish insults directed toward SCOTUS.
Chief Justice Roberts actually ruled the mandate, relative to the commerce clause, was unconstitutional. That’s how the Democrats got Obama-care going in the first place. This is critical. His ruling means Congress can’t compel American citizens to purchase anything. Ever. The notion is now officially and forever, unconstitutional. As it should be.
Next, he stated that, because Congress doesn’t have the ability to mandate, it must, to fund Obama-care, rely on its power to tax. Therefore, the mechanism that funds Obama-care is a tax. This is also critical. Recall back during the initial Obama-care battles, the Democrats called it a penalty, Republicans called it a tax. Democrats consistently soft sold it as a penalty. It went to vote as a penalty. Obama declared endlessly, that it was not a tax, it was a penalty. But when the Democrats argued in front of the Supreme Court, they said ‘hey, a penalty or a tax, either way’. So, Roberts gave them a tax. It is now the official law of the land — beyond word-play and silly shenanigans. Obama-care is funded by tax dollars. Democrats now must defend a tax increase to justify the Obama-care law.
Finally, he struck down as unconstitutional, the Obama-care idea that the federal government can bully states into complying by yanking their existing medicaid funding. Liberals, through Obama-care, basically said to the states — ‘comply with Obama-care or we will stop existing funding.’ Roberts ruled that is a no-no. If a state takes the money, fine, the Feds can tell the state how to run a program, but if the state refuses money, the federal government can’t penalize the state by yanking other funding. Therefore, a state can decline to participate in Obama-care without penalty. This is obviously a serious problem. Are we going to have 10, 12, 25 states not participating in “national” health-care? Suddenly, it’s not national, is it?
Ultimately, Roberts supported states rights by limiting the federal government’s coercive abilities. He ruled that the government can not force the people to purchase products or services under the commerce clause and he forced liberals to have to come clean and admit that Obama-care is funded by tax increases.
Although he didn’t guarantee Romney a win, he certainly did more than his part and should be applauded.
And he did this without creating a civil war or having bricks thrown through his windshield. Oh, and he’ll be home in time for dinner.
Brilliant.
Follow I.M. Citizen at IMCitizen.net
__________________________________

Now, I did promise to share some of today's cartoons/photos by creative Americans:









Here's how the U.S. Supreme Court justices voted on the individual mandate






Today the Supreme Court upheld the Constitutionality of Obamacare on the premise that the individual mandate is a "tax."
The "incredible irony," according to MRC's Brent Bozell is that the Court Has "Declared Obama to Be a Monumental Liar," for promising that Obamacare was NOT a tax in 2009. http://bit.ly/LiXuMO 
These photos are just a few of hundreds posted today and I am going to have to continue this as Part 2, due to the photos taking up too much space for one article.


Americans Stand with Israel
Thursday, June 28, 2012
by Bee Sting











Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Music videos: Bloom - Ryan Farish







Obama Scrapes the Bottom of the Barrel


Egotistical Idiot!
Typical Obama-style - Ignore the "will of the people" for
four years and then, demand they give up cash for his re-election!
Is he on drugs?!

FRONT PAGE MAGAZINEPosted by  Bio ↓ on Jun 27th, 2012
Last week, President Obama hit rock bottom with his re-election campaign. Recognizing that having created a slag heap of failed polices, he now has one asset—residual personal popularity– his re-election team decided to move into exploitation mode.
First, they sent an email from Michelle, Barack’s wife, explaining:
For the first 10 years of our marriage, Barack and I lived in an apartment in my hometown of Chicago.
 The winters there can be pretty harsh, but no matter how snowy or icy it got, Barack would head out into the cold — shovel in hand — to dig my car out before I went to work.
In all our years of marriage, he’s always looked out for me. Now, I see that same commitment every day to you and to this country.
Give him money because he once shoveled snow?  Ridiculous.  We’re supposed to believe that Obama has looked out for us the same way he looked out for his wife?  Come on!  We are supposed to be his boss, not a spouse.  If we order him to shovel political snow, he’s supposed to do it – not as a favor, or out of love, but because that’s the role of the Chief Executive, who is the servant of the American voter.
As if that weren’t enough, the Obama campaign website decided on Friday to open up an Obama Event Registry. Here’s how they pitched it:
Got a birthday, anniversary, or wedding coming up?
Let your friends know how important this election is to you—register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a great way to support the President on your big day. Plus, it’s a gift that we can all appreciate—and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.
Setting up and sharing your registry page is easy—so get started today.
That honeymoon you wanted to take with your spouse? Forget about it, you selfish pig. Give the greatest gift of all: a donation to a failing president who will bankrupt your future children.
By and large, the young people being asked to make this gift have been most impoverished by President Obama’s economy. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 have an unemployment rate in excess of 16 percent. They’re accumulating college debt – even President Obama is whining about the student loan rates. And they have no hope of living in a country with a budget surplus any time in the near future.  Now the President asks them to give to him instead of giving to each other.
President Obama’s entire campaign strategy is now predicated on playing the victim. Last week, Stuart Rothenberg of Roll Call said that Obama was the underdog in the presidential election; Democrats are already making charges of voter suppression, prepping the groundwork for lawsuits and riots if Obama loses. And Obama is falling further and further behind Mitt Romney in the money race.
So he’s turning to you. Yes, you. That cancer treatment you’re about to undergo? Skip it and give Obama the cash. After all, we’re all dead in the long run. And since Obama is, according to Michelle Obama, a husband to us all, we might as well send him our cash in the form of a living trust, since he’ll inherit it anyway at some point.

About 

Ben Shapiro is an attorney and writer and a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, and author of the new book “Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV” from Broadside Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.