Obama’s Con Game: Budget Priorities Part 1

This one doesn’t come directly from President Obama (though many others have).  It comes from White House Senior Advisor, David Plouffe as reported this morning in Politico Playbook.  However, it’s consistent with the pattern of intellectual dishonesty exhibited by the President and his administration.  It’s what I call “Low Information Explanation” –  L.I.E for short.

It doesn’t take much critical thinking to see through this one. Here is the entire quote from Politico this morning.

DAVID PLOUFFE, White House senior adviser, will be out with a blast email this a.m.: “[W]hen Congressman Paul Ryan put out a new budget for the House Republicans this week, we spent some time with it. We took a careful look and did the math. Here’s what we learned. Republicans in Washington want to give millionaires and billionaires an average tax break of at least $150,000. … To show you what we mean, we’ve put together an infographic that breaks out the kinds of priorities we’d have to give up for the $150,000 tax break that Republicans want to give to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires. Check it out below and forward this message to your friends. The more people who share it, the more folks will understand what’s at stake and how we can do better for the middle class.” See the graphic. http://bit.ly/GGUuFy

Now I’m no big fan of Paul Ryan or the Republican budget or the Republicans for that matter.  But the argument above is a con job pure and simple.  Did you catch it?

To show you what we mean, we’ve put together an infographic that breaks out the kinds of priorities we’d have to give up for the $150,000 tax break that Republicans want to give to the nation’s millionaires and billionaires.

The first few items on the chart are senior medicare prescription costs, a high school computer lab,  a year of medical care for a veteran and medical research grants.  So Plouffe implies that the trade off is the incremental dollar of taxes denied to the government against an incremental dollar of senior citizen’s medicine.  That’s exactly what his statement and chart say.  Are those really the Obama administration’s priorities for budget cuts?

Apparently Plouffe is a very poor decision maker because a good decision maker would trade his incremental dollar of cost ( tax cuts) against the LEAST valuable benefit to be given up. If you are $50 short on your monthly budget do you sacrifice grandma’s medicine or the movie tickets?   Plouffe trades extremely high value benefits. Plouffe sacrifices grandma! Is that really the way these guys make decisions?

Really?  Grandma?  There is nothing else we can cut first?

Should we cut senior medical benefits or should cut the wars first?

Should we cut school computer labs or should we eliminate the IRS and TSA first?

Should we cut veteran’s benefits or should we eliminate corporate welfare first?

Should we cut medical research or should we eliminate the war on drugs first and the associated prison and police costs?

No wonder the country is in such bad shape with people like that making decisions.  Either Plouffe and the Obama administration are intellectually weak or perhaps they just think you are.

Paula Gloria and Joe Barton on marijuana laws: Off with its head.

Apparently the cops had no warrant when they busted down Joe Barton’s door.  Of course Libertarians would be outraged. But Joe Barton and Paula Gloria aren’t really Libertarians – at least not the big L type.  Most people aren’t as radical as Libertarians on Marijuana laws right?  Well perhaps you haven’t been far enough down the Rabbit Hole.

Note: Paula Gloria and Joe Barton will be the guest speakers at the Manhattan Libertarian Monthly Meeting, Next Monday August 8th, 2011.  The meeting is free and all are welcome to attend.  More Info here.

Here are some excerpts from my recent conversation with Paula and Joe.

Q: Please introduce yourself and tell us why Libertarians should be interested in your talk on Monday.

Paula:  I’m actually not informed enough about Libertarian positions. I can make some comments about medical marijuana. We are for freeing all the prisoners. We are for upholding the Constitution. We are for due process. To have a grand jury indictment you should have a victim of a crime.  Somebody should be able to say they have been hurt.  We are the People.  We are sovereign. We can do anything we want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else or prevent anyone else from exercising their rights.

Q: Can you give us a little background and tell us what the title of your talk means?

Paula: I’m the host of a show called “Farther Down The Rabbit Hole” which comes out daily at 12 noon on the community affairs channel on Manhattan Neighborhood Network.  It goes to about 600,000 households. Four years ago I started posting some of the shows on YouTube and because of that I was able to get a lot of feedback from people. Blogging is a really exciting way to develop our understanding and become good members of society and in particular I started to learn about the power of our Constitution and the importance of our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

On Monday we will talk about “How to stand up vs run into machine gun fire”.  The importance of standing up versus walking into machine-gun fire means if you’re trying to do something that’s very difficult to do and you have opposition like a police state you want to make sure you have the best power behind you. We feel we have the Constitution behind us and if people understand the Constitution and understand the importance of God-given inalienable rights, that power can transform machine-gun fire. It can convince people who are trying to fight you, that they really should be with you. We are all Americans. We may have different ways of exercising our rights which is how it was meant t be as long as they don’t hurt other people.

Joe:  We believe we are becoming a police state. But rather than confront the police we prefer that people start taking their grievances to the courts and stand on constitutional issues. We are into supporting anybody who is standing up and protecting and defending the Constitution in court.

Paula: We support all marijuana reforms whose priority is to free the non-violent prisoners. We believe that the so-called marijuana laws are not even constitutional and if people understood how to argue in court they would win and the courts would do the right thing and uphold people’s inalienable rights.

Joe : the Constitution guarantees us the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and according to the Constitution only a crime that has a victim is really a criminal offense. Our legislators have gotten so out of hand, they’ve made so many laws that our prisons are full right now of citizens convicted of crimes with no victim. We need to wake people up and liberate our country. We need to take back the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and stop filling our prisons with nonviolent people who were convicted of victimless crimes. How can you have a crime when there’s no victim?

Q:  What about court cases that support the federal government’s right to interfere in medical marijuana states?

Joe : Every person who goes to court should take a stand, and  more people should support the people going to court. Go to court with them. Give publicity to anybody who is really taking a stand.  As far as the rulings, what we need to do is have enough people wake up and speak up and even start writing to the Supreme Court.  If a nationwide letter campaign was written by the American people, which the Libertarian party could probably get behind, get everybody to write letters to the Supreme Court saying “We are We The People and you work for us. You are giving away our rights. You are selling out to big business. You took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution and we expect you to do that.  You aren’t doing that when you protect government and corporations against the people.”

Paula: We fear that the medical marijuana laws are actually going increase regulation and if you increase regulation you have more government. We want less government and to free the prisoners.  Half a million people are in jail now unconstitutionally. A felony is a very serious, horrible thing. The founding fathers understood that it would be an extreme case that you arrest somebody and that you would put somebody in prison, so when you start looking at false arrest and imprisonment you begin to see what’s happened is an atrophying of the Constitution. Special interests have raided the country. If people don’t understand their rights they can’t stand up for them in a timely way. You have to call the court’s attention to the fraud. Until you call fraud to the core court’s attention the court is not obliged to do anything. Once people understand their powers and our constitutional principles they can stand up and say  “hey you judges, you swore and oath to protect our rights, you work for us, protect our rights”.

Q: Would you comment on Federal interference in medical marijuana states?

Joe: the Democrats and Republicans, all they do is pass power back and forth and the people keep losing more and more rights. Over the years Libertarians have asked me to help support them and the Green party asked me to support them. But one of my problems with all the politicians is the Republicans and Democrats are power mad and the Libertarians and the Greens really have no balls. They’re afraid to really go out on the edge. If the Libertarian party really wants to do something it’s got to get much more in touch with the people and much more radical. I don’t mean wild radical. I mean radical as far as taking on the Democrats and Republicans and really bringing the issues up. Don’t half step. Come out and say it.

Paula: You have the Constitution behind you there’s a great case,  Shuttlesworth v Birmingham  . If the state turns a liberty into a privilege, a citizen can engage in the right with impunity. One of the charges against Joe was growing marijuana without a license. A lot of people might say this is New York there is no license for growing marijuana.  But our concern is, and we cite case law again, Murdoch v Penn  , where the First Amendment right was upheld. The Supreme Court determined the state cannot convert a liberty into a privilege, license it and attach a fee to it.  So Joe in arguing his case, is not saying give me a license. He is saying you don’t need a license to grow marijuana.  And anybody has a right, in this case the right to grow marijuana under the right of a freedom of the pursuit of happiness.  You can read all of our arguments.  So these statutes that are not constitutional – the citizen can engage in the right with impunity.  But the citizen has to know how to stand up in a timely way in court and not be tricked out of giving up his rights.  Mostly when the courts uphold special interests over We the People, they do it through trickery and getting you in different jurisdictions.

In the case of the medical marijuana laws life might be given to somebody, a medical patient who otherwise without marijuana wouldn’t have life. But what about a law where you are taking the marijuana away from people who are illegally busted in order to provide that medicine? On one hand you’re saying it’s a crime (to have marijuana) and on the other hand government is confiscating marijuana with the intent to sell it to medical marijuana patients, which is stealing from growers so the government can profit. If government can distribute or license pharmaceutical companies government is stealing from the people for pharmaceutical profits and when they license pharmaceutical companies they incarcerate We the People for not having licenses.  This is arbitrary, regulation against the people in favor of big business by gathering what supposed to be criminal to give it away to patients.  Not give it away – I’m sure governments will have a big fee attached to it.

Q: Joe, what’s the status of your case?

Joe: there are two court cases. In the first one they came in with a knock warrant but they busted down my door anyway! The police trespassed on two occasions. After coming up a half mile driveway posted with many no trespassing signs, they came up on my porch and were looking in my window and sniffing at my door to try to smell marijuana so that they could get a warrant which is illegal.  That case is on appeal right now.  Then they came back again three years later.  The police officer met my son on the porch said he smelled marijuana again and forced his way into the house without a warrant. We are going to court right now on that.  When my son stepped out on the porch he told the cop you need a warrant but the cop forced his way in any way.  They had us there for two hours out in the car in the winter with no coats on.  Then they brought us to the police station for eight hours while they went and got a warrant to try to make good on coming in without a warrant, which under our Constitution is illegal.

Q: Do you see anything improving or any progress on the anti-prohibition movement?

Joe:  The American people are so squeezed and the politicians have sold us out to big business and corporations. Look how many people are losing their homes while we bailed out the banks. We give billions of dollars to the banks while people are evicted, American citizens, from their homes.  I see within the next year to two years you’re going to see the American people rise up like they never rose up before.  Unless the Libertarian party really comes out and takes a real stand and is very active they are going to be left behind.

Paula:  Let me read this from Norton v Shelby County .

“While acts of a de facto incumbent of an office lawfully created by law and existing are often held to be binding from reasons of public policy, the acts of a person assuming to fill and perform the duties of an office which does not exist de jure can have no validity whatever in law.  An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed”

When my husband was talking about being radical the actual term is being constitutional. In a way the Constitution is a very radical document if you look in world history.  Can we be great enough today so we can maintain it? That’s what I’m saying.  When I read the case law that’s the Supreme Court in legal contemplation.  It’s not the spin factor or hype, it is what our country is founded on.

Joe:  When you talk about legalization,  the government will legalize drugs and then they will say well you can’t get it on the street. The medical thing is a phony thing.  The people will push for medical marijuana and the government will say you can’t consistently deliver the dosage. Then they will license it to pharmaceutical companies and anybody growing on their own will still be illegal and growing without a license and we will still have the prison state. So we want repeal of an unconstitutional law. Let it go back to what it was like before the law ever existed where anybody could grow it and it wasn’t regulated. Look at what is happening in Canada.  Canada has medical marijuana but the medical marijuana patients we have talked to say the marijuana they get from the government is crap and doesn’t  work in relation to their illnesses and they still have to go out on the street and buy so called “illegal” marijuana which works. If the marijuana laws were repealed the free market would produce the best quality.

The government says that people who grow or are selling marijuana are dealing drugs and they are criminals yet the government wants to license pharmaceutical corporations to deal the very same drugs which gives corporations rights and takes them away from the people and even on the statutory level violates anti-trust laws.  The government protects corporate interests by violating the rights of the people which is clearly unconstitutional.

A flesh and blood human being with inalienable rights always trumps a corporation in court if the violated party stands up to become the belligerent claimant.  We don’t trust the government to do what is best for medical patients or the people who grow marijuana.  Here is an example, the mafia used to run numbers the government called them criminals and said they were immoral lock them up put them in jail.  Then once the number runners were out of business the government started lotto saying that the profits would go to better schools.  Here is how that turned out when you bet with the mafia if they said they would pay a hundred dollars they paid a hundred dollars.  Now that the government is running numbers if they say you are going to win a million dollars they then tax it and they don’t pay a million dollars.  As far as the lottery money going to schools our schools are worse now then ever before in spite of billions of dollars taken in by the government from lotto. Where has the money gone?  We should have the best equipped schools in the world.  Government created criminals out of the mafia who honored the rules of the game yet government pays half what they claim and the money doesn’t go to schools.  Who is scamming who?

 

 

Related Legal Documents:

Memorandum of  Law

Demurer

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Please join us Monday August 8th for Paula’s and Joe’s talk with the Manhattan LP.  The meeting is free.  All are welcome.  More info here.

NLRB Tells Voters “Talk To The Hand”

Barak Obama may be paying lip service to the will of the voters after the resounding vote of no confidence in the November elections.  But his bureaucracy either isn’t listening or they just don’t care what the voters want. 

Last November the voters in Utah, South Carolina, South Dakota and Arizona overwhelmingly approved amendments to their state constitutions that in effect guaranty workers the right to a secret ballot for union organizing elections.  Arguably these measures were intended to nullify the proposed federal Card-Check law, deceptively named the Employee Free Choice Act which would remove that guaranty.  

In no uncertain terms, voters told the Federal Government that they preferred to make their own decisions with respect to activity within their own states.   These votes were not even close (sources SC, UT, SD, AZ):

South Carolina 86%

Utah  60%

South Dakota79%

Arizona 60%

 But democracy and federalism be damned, the National Labor Relations Board informed the states’ Attorneys General that they plan to sue the states to force them to submit to federal labor laws.  General Counsel Lafe Solomon argues that the U.S. Constitution’s  Supremacy Clause means that the federal labor law overrides state constitutions.  The Supremacy Clause may mean that legitimate federal law overrides state law.   However, that applies only to legitimate federal law.

 The authority to interfere in business agreements among consenting adults is not found in the enumerated powers that the U.S Constitution designates as the only powers allowed the Federal Government.  Proponents of broad federal regulation of business resort to tortured interpretations of the commerce and welfare clauses to justify the power of the Federal Government to do just about anything.  Of course this is the opposite of the Federal System of limited central government on which the U.S. Constitution is based.

In this case the Federal Government rushes to grant special privileges to labor unions who have faithfully supported big government in return for these special privileges.   I’m not against any group of workers’ right to organize.  But granting them any special legal privileges empowers special interests at the expense of the regular people.  It’s corruption pure and simple.

It’s these payoffs to special interests whether it’s the military-industrial complex, big-pharma, the trial lawyers, the teacher’s union, college students,  toxic mortgage holders, and many others, that have brought the country near bankruptcy.   The only way to stop it is to create meaningful competition among governments.  That is, make it easier to change jurisdictions, including tax jurisdictions.  It’s a lot easier to move to another town or another state than it is to move to another country.

I’m not suggesting that all the states are better than the Feds – some are much worse.  But currently most of the power and tax revenues accrue to the centralized Federal Government.  That defeats the free market competition among governments that the founding fathers intended as a protection of federalism.     Rapacious governments at all levels look for ways to pay for their extravagant payoffs to special interests .  Real competition among tax jurisdictions is the only way to keep in check the politicians and the special interests they serve.  That means much less power and much lower taxes at the federal level.  The states can then make taxing and spending decisions that are more in line with their voters’ preferences.

 That would be a step in the right direction. It isn’t the ultimate goal.  While the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects State sovereignty – morally sovereignty resides in the individual.  Recognizing  that a human being is not morally born the subject of any other human being or group is the first step in creating a society where every human being is free to fulfill his/her full potential free of force and coercion by self-serving special interests .  Reducing the power of the Federal Government is just a first step toward improving the human condition.  That means putting the Federal Government back into its constitutionally defined box.  That’s what the nullification movement and the Tenth Amendment movement are about.

As the Federal Government continues to expand its control over every aspect of our lives and businesses challenges to federal regulation of health care, gun rights, drug laws and a dozen or so other topics have mounted. 

The fundamental issue is whether the Federal Government and specifically the Supreme Court, is the only entity that can judge the constitutional legitimacy of Federal Law.  The people who wrote the Constitution didn’t intend it that way (see my blog here).

The legal constitutional argument is one thing – the Federal Government should obey the law as defined by the Constitution.  But how should the Federal Government react when the will of a few hundred corrupt politicians and bureaucrats in Washington D.C. – people  who are dependent on union political contributions –  run roughshod over the will of hundreds of thousands of voters.  This is now more the norm than the exception.  The Federal Government acted against the will of the voters on the bailouts, health care, the wars and REAL ID.  Bills are almost never read by the legislators who force them on us and most of the rules we are told to live by are made by appointed bureaucrats with no constitutional authority at all.  To add insult to injury the political class isn’t subject to its own laws,  for example they have different health care, different retirement benefits, and special parking privileges.

We could wait until it’s too late. We could wait for a future in which many states and perhaps the Federal Government declare bankruptcy, the dollar and the economy go into  freefall,  only the political class can afford health care and we have new wars to take the public’s mind off the failure of government.  That’s exactly the path the Federal Government has us on now.

The alternative, the more civilized path, is to respect the will of the people as expressed by their state and local political institutions and by the individuals themselves.   Maybe that should be in the Constitution.  Hey – guess what – it is!  

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BTW – Rick Montes of the Tenth Amendment Center will speak at the Manhattan Libertarian Party Monthly Meeting on March 14, 2010. More info here.

Big Govenment and the Arts: Belarus Style

Andrew Broussard submitted this guest post.

As a result of the shootings in Arizona we hear numerous calls to tone down the political rhetoric.  But who is to determine when speech has crossed the line? Perhaps we should take a lesson from Alexander Lukashenko.

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Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried – and as we struggle to save the Constitution on which this country was founded, there are countries struggling to have a constitution at all.  Take Belarus, for example.  The last remaining dictatorship in Europe, President Alexander Lukashenko embodies the old-school Soviet-style of oppressive government – and he is fighting to hang onto power in any way that he can.

Ranked 188 of 195 countries on The Freedom Index and ranked 139 out of 180 in terms of corruption, Belarusians are limited in what they can do, say, and (it damn near seems) even think.  On December 19th, 2010, after the most recent fraudulent Presidential election, over fifty thousand protestors took to the streets of Minsk and lead a peaceful demonstration for their rights.  The demonstration was broken up by the KGB – the President’s secret police – resulting in thousands of injuries and over a hundred people arrested.  These arrests included three prominent journalists and five of the major opposition Presidential candidates.  Also arrested were the members of the theater group “Belarus Free Theatre.”  

In Belarus, government censors approve what plays are allowed to be performed, as well as where and when and by whom.  Frustrated by their inability to put on the plays that they wanted to do, the Belarus Free Theatre was founded in 2005 as a truly underground theater company.  The details of the performances are sent out a half-hour before curtain by text message.  The shows are performed in different locations, never in an actual theater.  Police raids are not out of the question and performances have been shut down before by either the police or the KGB.  And yet, the members of this company continue to perform – sometimes known plays, sometimes plays of their own devising, all at the risk of their lives.

Those of you tuned into the NYC arts scene have probably heard about the BFT recently.  They just wrapped up a two week run of their acclaimed show, entitled “Being Harold Pinter”, which was performed as part of The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival.    However, at the start of the New Year, it was unclear as to whether or not they would even make it to the U.S. – they’d been tried and convicted in speed-trials lasting no more than a few minutes, thrown in jails where they were intimidated and physically abused, and it is still unclear (for the protection of those involved) as to how they managed to escape.  Some members of the troupe were unable to leave the country and they’ve gone into hiding.  The members who managed to make it to the U.S. are now facing a difficult watershed: to return to their country runs the serious risk of being arrested for something as serious as treason the moment they step off the plane.  But they cannot stay here and claim asylum – they are patriots and don’t want to give up the fight.

As a result, The Public Theater has decided to show support for these incredibly brave artists by hosting a benefit performance (now sold-out) of their show on Monday evening (1/17), featuring appearances from artists like Tony Kushner, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Mandy Patinkin, and Lou Reed.  The Public is also organizing a peaceful protest outside the Belarusian Mission to the UN on Wednesday (1/19) at noon – and we’re encouraging everyone who believes that art should be free to attend.  Here’s the event page, for more information: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180838118613347&index=1

Andrew Broussard, submitted this guest post.  As a result of the shootings in Arizona we hear numerous calls for abridgement of free speech in an effort to tone down political rhetoric.  But to limit what we think and to limit what we think is to limit our humanity.

Ludwig Von Mises said “There can be no freedom in art and literature where the government determines who shall create them.”  We defend this right to freedom of expression here at home – but there’s a lot to be said for helping those who seek to defend it abroad as well.  In the last twenty or so years, we’ve seen Orange, Rose, and Velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe that peacefully overturned the dictatorial governments of Ukraine, Georgia, and Czechoslovakia (respectively).  This could very well be the beginnings of a similar Color Revolution in Belarus.  Please consider showing your support for the brave artists of the Belarus Free Theatre and for the right to freedom of expression by joining us at this protest.  It is the 21st Century – the time for repressive governments is finally over and the future starts now.

Long live the Libertarian Party

republished from Eric Sundwall’s post in Examiner.com November 5th, 2010

While some partisans lick their chops in anticipation of their new political spoils and others their wounds from electoral battle, Libertarian Party members of NY and activists are scrambling to determine if in fact they may have ballot status. Reminded of the 1998 effort of the Working Families Party that woke up the next day with forty five thousand votes, long time third party activists like the Greens Mark Dunlea has reminded this Redlich staffer that miracles can happen outside Lake Placid in New York.

The two to three week period after the election includes not only the constant prattle of talking heads until 2012, but also a re-canvassing of election districts and the absentee count. This yielded Ralph Nader ….  read entire article