Obama's Presidency Meant Change from Bush's: It's Anti-Semitic

The Wall Street Journal weekend print edition carries the stark headline "Israeli Leader Clashes with Obama." Until now I haven't been clear about how Obama and George W. Bush differed. On economics, both agreed that it was absolutely essential to give $12.4 trillion to badly managed financial concerns. Both felt free to give similar grants to corrupt business interests: Bush gave billions to Halliburton and, via his stimulus, Obama gave even more to interests like George Soros.  Bush left office with rising unemployment, and Obama's administration has seen the highest average unemployment since the Carter years. Bush started two wars, and Obama has started a third war. Bush's Fed doubled the money supply, and Obama's Fed more than doubled it again. Bush claimed to be a conservative who was compassionate, but handed hundreds of billions to the pharmaceutical industry via his ill conceived prescription drug plan; Obama claimed to be a Democrat who was compassionate and handed hundreds of billions to the insurance industry via his ill conceived health reform plan. Bush permitted the United Nations to send environmental inspectors to American parks for unknown reasons (based on a treaty that George H. Bush signed); Obama is advocating allowing the UN to rescind the Second Amendment.  Bush stomped on Americans' sacred liberties with the Patriot Act. Obama got elected by claiming that he is in favor of civil liberties, lying to his supporters.  When elected, Obama renewed the Patriot Act and, with the support of the Democratic Party-led Senate, will renew it again.

There is one big difference.  Obama is an anti-Semite who will relish seeing Israel fall. Bush wasn't.

Attacking Liberty, Indiana Supreme Court Overlooks Patriot Act

Jim Crum, one of my Chicago correspondents and a blogger on American Thinker, forwarded me Barnes v. State of Indiana,  a case that was decided in Indiana's Supreme Court, the state's highest court.  In tandem with the Democratic Party-dominated Senate's decision to renew the Patriot Act, the case illustrates the American judiciary's indifference to liberty and its cooperation with the Bush-Obama administration's totalitarian agenda.  The American court system needs to be reconstituted.  States' rights need to be renewed and the US Supreme Court eliminated.  The courts are not the friend of freedom or of the American people.

The facts of the Barnes case come out of a Law and Order episode.  In November 2007 Barnes had gotten into an argument with his wife, Mary, and she called the police, telling them that Barnes had thrown things but there had been no violence. By the time police arrived, Barnes had left the apartment. Upon questioning, Barnes yelled to the the police that they were not needed because he was leaving.  Mary appeared, giving him a duffle bag, and then returned to the Barnes apartment. Barnes and Mary reentered the apartment and Barnes told the police that they could not enter.  Mary told Barnes to "just let the police in."  When the police entered Barnes resisted violently. The police used a Taser and subdued Barnes. He was charged with battery on a police officer, resisting law enforcement, disorderly conduct, and interference with reporting a crime, all class A misdemeanors. 

As part of the trial, Barnes wanted to give this instruction to the jury:
 

When an arrest is attempted by means of a forceful and unlawful entry into a citizen‘s home, such entry represents the use of excessive force, and the arrest cannot be considered peaceable. Therefore, a citizen has the right to reasonably resist the unlawful entry. 

The trial court did not permit Barnes to give the instruction. The jury found Barnes guilty. Barnes then appealed, and the Indiana Court of Appeals found that the instruction should have been given, and its omission invalidated the convictions, ordering a new trial. The Supreme Court then reviewed the case (prior to any new trial) to determine whether a new trial was needed.

The Supreme Court's reasoning goes:

Now this Court is faced for the first time with the question of whether Indiana should recognize the common-law right to reasonably resist unlawful entry by police officers. We conclude that public policy disfavors any such right. Accordingly, the trial court‘s refusal to give Barnes‘s tendered instruction was not error.

The English common-law right to resist unlawful police action existed for over three hundred years, and some scholars trace its origin to the Magna Carta in 1215....The United States Supreme Court recognized this right in Bad Elk v. United States, 177 U.S. 529, 535 (1900): ―If the officer had no right to arrest, the other party might resist the illegal attempt to arrest him, using no more force than was absolutely necessary to repel the assault constituting the attempt to arrest. The Supreme Court has affirmed this right as recently as 1948. United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 594 (1948) (One has an undoubted right to resist an unlawful arrest, and courts will uphold the right of resistance in proper cases).

In the 1920s, legal scholarship began criticizing the right as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers. Hemmens & Levin...One scholar noted that the common-law right came from a time where ―resistance to an arrest by a peace officer did not involve the serious dangers it does today. Sam B. Warner, The Uniform Arrest Act, 28 Va. L. Rev. 315, 330 (1942). The Model Penal Code eliminated the right on two grounds: ―(1) the development of alternate remedies for an aggrieved arrestee, and (2) the use of force by the arrestee was likely to result in greater injury to the person without preventing the arrest... In response to this criticism, a majority of states have abolished the right via statutes in the 1940s and judicial opinions in the 1960s.

We believe that a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Nowadays, an aggrieved arrestee has means unavailable at common law for redress against unlawful police action. E.g., Warner...(citing the dangers of arrest at common law—indefinite detention, lack of bail, disease-infested prisons, physical torture—as reasons for recognizing the right to resist); State v. Hobson, 577 N.W.2d 825, 835–36 (Wis. 1998) (citing the following modern developments: (1) bail, (2) prompt arraignment and determination of probable cause, (3) the exclusionary rule, (4) police department internal review and disciplinary procedure, and (5) civil remedies). We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries....Accordingly, the trial court‘s failure to give Barnes‘s proffered jury instruction on this right was not error.

The Indiana Court's reasoning is specious, because the United States has continued to violate the Consititution and common law liberties through the Patriot Act.  By granting itself leeway to violate any American's rights merely by calling him a terrorist, the Patriot Act overturns all of the Indiana Court's reasoning.  It does not permit bail. It permits indefinite detention. It does not require prompt arraignment. It does not require  the rules of evidence.  Rather than weakening  the liberties that Indiana grants to its citizens, the Supreme Court should be strengthening them in light of current events.

I do not speak for the people of Indiana, but they, like New Yorkers, seem to have allowed themselves to be subjugated to an illegitimate legal system.

With respect to the Patriot Act, the Democratic Party-dominated Senate again proves that it opposes civil liberties. With all of the Democrats' claims during the Bush years that they didn't like Bush because he curtailed liberty, the Demcorats have not repealed the Patriot Act, despite ample opportunity to do so. Obama has turned out to be an anti-Semitic version of Bush. 

The Patriot Act's chief opponent in the Senate is a Republican, Rand Paul.  John Tate of the Campaign for Liberty writes:

On Thursday, Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell collaborated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a backroom pact to extend the so-called "Patriot" Act - with as little debate as possible - for 4 years before some of the most liberty-savaging components expire on Friday, May 27.

The surveillance state's ability to snoop through your business records, pry into your library book checkouts, monitor so-called "lone wolfs," and spy on your personal communications through roving wiretaps will be extended until 2015, which "coincidentally" is not an election year.

So much for all that lofty rhetoric last fall about adhering to the Constitution.

By taking a chainsaw to the Fourth Amendment, they have pledged their allegiance to the Surveillance State.

Even more galling, a cloture vote is scheduled for 5PM Monday, because they believed Senator Rand Paul would be out of town, and they would have a free hand to slip extending the government's domestic spying capabilities through without anyone noticing.

And that has always been the plan from the get-go.

So it goes. The Democrats lied to their constituents and claimed to oppose the Patriot Act, which legalizes searches and seizures. At the same time, the courts in Indiana brush aside one of the few remaining defenses against police incursions on freedom.  Democrats crow about how wonderful Obama is while the Democratic Party out-bushes Bush. The Republicans can't figure out what the meaning of the word "freedom" is. So American freedom dies.

CUNY Overlooks Ideological Discrimination.

I cross posted this on the NAS Blog:

The City of University of New York is conducting a survey concerning discrimination with respect to protected classes under the Civil Rights Act and sexual orientation. I sent an e-mail to the individual in charge of the survey. The e-mail says in part:

In my opinion you omitted a greater source of unfair discrimination than any that you covered, albeit one that is not covered under the Civil Rights Act: discrimination on the basis of ideology. Ideological discrimination has effects that are similar to the discrimination that you cover. Better candidates are excluded. Students receive only one point of view, attenuating their education. Promotion decisions are made on the basis of ideology rather than ability. By discriminating against a large segment of New York’s population CUNY puts itself at odds with that segment.

I urge CUNY to investigate the extent and scope of ideological discrimination in faculty personnel decision making.

I was delighted that the affirmative action attorney who is conducting the survey (who used to work at Brooklyn College and now is in the central CUNY office)wrote:

Hello,

I hope all is well at Brooklyn.  Thanks for taking the survey and I appreciate your feedback.  This very issue was raised today in a meeting when we discussed how to define "diversity."

Best,

Jennifer

Does Obama Intend to Sue Israel Too?

The Obama administration is proving itself to be so extreme, and so extremely inept, that I, who have been talking about a split government as being advantageous, have concluded that almost any Republican would be preferable to Obama's continuing in office.

Cornel West, Princeton's African-American diversity expert, sounds like he's coming to a similar conclusion.   West says in The Boston Globe that Obamai is“a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”  I think he started reading my blog because I first said that three years ago.  West's racist Obama-supporting Princeton colleague, Paul Krugman, likely disagrees.  With a name like "Krugman" he might be concerned about Obama's eagerness to return Israel to its 1967 borders. But the Democratic Party's Judenrat is eager to defend Obama's claim that he is eager that Israel's borders be defensible once they've been returned to an indefensible position. ABC News reports that an officer of the Democratic Party's Judenrat, The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg, defends Obama's statement as does the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith.

The Judenrat's reasoning seems to be that Obama has been such a success at protecting America's borders that he will do an excellent job with Israel's.  In fact he is so successful at defending the US's borders that he is suing the state of Arizona.  I can see why the ADL and Jeffrey Goldberg are eager to see Obama secure Israel's borders. Obama will then sue Israel if it tries to defend itself.

On the other hand, Commentary's Omri Ceren writes:


>Having abandoned past U.S. assurances on this overarching core issue, the President is now asking the Israelis to take enormous risks—in the aftermath of a Fatah-Hamas merger, no less—based on future U.S. assurances. This frankly bizarre diplomatic and rhetorical strategy seems unlikely to succeed.

Yup. Obama thinks his Texas border policy has been so successful that he aims to transfer it to Israel.

Even worse than his Texas-in-Israel position is Obama's traitorous intent to thwart the 2nd Amendment through a United Nations treaty.  I received a call today from the National Rifle Association. The caller, an NRA member, told me that the Obama administration is planning to participate in and sign a United Nations initiative that would interfere with the 2nd Amendment.  Pajamas Media's Howard Nemerov reports:

The UN seeks a 'comprehensive, legally binding instrument establishing common international standards for the import, export and transfer of conventional arms.'

Last October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the Obama administration’s support for the United Nations plan to regulate 'convention arms transfers.' Brady-endorsed Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D, CA-10) was chosen as under secretary for arms control and international security in the State Department.

I more than doubled my lapsed membership donation to the NRA plus gave them extra to cover the membership of a serviceman.  We need the NRA to protect America from tyranny.  It is not going too far to call a president who would threaten the Second Amendment with a United Nations treaty not just a tyrant, but a traitor. 

Obama must go. The Republicans must defeat him.  Doing so will not stop America's longer term decline, which would require the election of Ron Paul or Gary Johnson plus a Tea Party Congress.  America's decline is as much due to Progressive Republicans like Mitt Romney and George W. Bush as it is to the Democrats.  But anything is better than a traitor like Obama.

The Ulster County Republicans in a Can't-Do America

I just submitted this piece to The Lincoln Eagle. 

The Ulster County Republicans in a Can't-Do America

Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.*

On May 13, Robin Yess resigned from her position of chair of the Ulster County Republican Committee.  In an e-mail that she sent to the county's executive committee, which is comprised of the chairs of the town Republican committees, she wrote that the good 'ol boys' network, the GOB, is the problem with the GOP.  In particular, Yess cited five unnamed GOP county legislators who intend to vote in favor of the $80 to $100 million Golden Hill Health Care facility that will provide senior care to only one percent of Ulster County's seniors, many of whom are related to political officials and the county's wealthiest segment. The facility will cost each Ulster County taxpaying household more than $1,000, not counting interest on the loan, which could cost you another $1,000.  Yess wrote that she believes in limited government and lower taxes.  In her view support for the facility among GOP legislators is inconsistent with the GOP's principles.

               
Yess's resignation was accompanied by the usual political infighting.  But the principle ought to be of interest to anyone concerned with America's future.   Both Democrats and Republicans in Ulster County are committed to spending $100 million (not counting interest on the loan, which could amount to another $100 million) after twenty years of Ulster County's growth being one third of the national average.  New York is experiencing an exodus of young and hardworking taxpayers because of liberal taxation, and neither party senses a problem. 

              
The Golden Hill facility is an example of the age-old American phenomenon of special interest politics.  Both parties have pet causes. The Democrats have George Soros, the Trial Lawyers Association, the National Lawyers' Guild, and NYSUT, while the Republicans have Halliburton.  So it is at the county level.  Both parties have friends in the construction industry, in labor unions, and in the grant seeking business.

Both the Ulster County Law Enforcement Center--the county jail--and the Golden Hill facility benefit special interests.  Making matters worse is the absence of a serious press or media (other than The Lincoln Eagle) that employ journalists who are capable of analysis without ideology or being embedded in the special interests concerning which they are supposed to be reporting. 

Back in the day of the Second Bank of the United States, the precursor of today's Federal Reserve Bank, Whig politicians were on the Bank's payroll until Andrew Jackson, the equivalent of today's Ron Paul, abolished the bank and set the stage for the greatest economic expansion in world history.  After the Civil War, Standard Oil captured a number of state legislators, much as Bruce Ratner and The New York Times recently utilized New York State's Empire State Development Corporation to evict law-abiding property owners for Ratner's and The Times's benefit.

In the 19th century the nation's shared belief in limited government restrained lobbying.  Because Americans believed in limited government, corrupt city governments in places like New York and Minneapolis, and the corrupt federal government, could do limited damage. In those days the corruption in New York was due to the Democrats, but the corruption in the federal customs houses was due to Republicans.

The limits on corruption changed with Theodore Roosevelt's election in 1904.  TR, a Republican, strongly believed in expansion of government. Many of his ideas were copied during the 1930s and later.  TR was brighter than his more famous cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  By the 1930s both parties had adopted variants of the Progressivism that TR had adapted from Herbert Croly's Promise of American Life.  The GOP, inspired by President William Howard Taft, whom TR detested after Taft's first term, favored less regulation and opposed welfare; the Democrats, inspired by FDR, favored more regulation and a greater degree of help to the poor.  Both parties favored subsidies to the wealthy. On balance, the Democrats favored greater subsidies to both the very poor and the very rich than did Republicans, but it is difficult to generalize. Both parties changed from their Jacksonian origins to the Progressivism of Roosevelt, Taft and Woodrow Wilson.

Americans who still believe in the ideas that built America--limited government, hard work, innovation and individualism--have no representative in Ulster County, in New York State, or nationally.  The Republicans and Democrats are both Progressive.  That is, Yess is only half right about Republican principles.  The liberty Republicans, led by Ron Paul and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, are one remnant of the Jacksonian Democrats.  The rest of the GOP is comprised of Progressives and, perhaps more commonly, self-interested hacks.  There is a smaller remnant of Jacksonian Democrats within a Democratic Party which is dominated by left-wing Progressives and, just like the Republicans, self-interested hacks.

Until recently, Americans could afford to be complacent. Politicians are politicians, many have reasoned, and you can't fight city hall. But politics has become intrusive; government is ending the American way of life.  Unless the silent majority begins to take an interest, America as you once knew it will end.

The Constitution does not have a word to say about political parties, but most Americans feel that they need to vote for either Democrats or Republicans.  After all, a third party might be radical and do strange and unexpected, extremist things. For example a third party might:

-Start three wars at a time
-Quintuple the nation's money supply and hand the printed money to commercial banks and stock brokers
-Legalize unconstitutional searches and seizures
-Borrow nearly a trillion dollars and give it out to politically connected friends

-Replace the education system with an ideologically driven, politically correct indoctrination system that does not teach writing

-Propose a cap and trade law (and UN Agenda 21 under George H. Bush) that would force you to move out of your home
-Declare morality to be dead and then claim that on moral grounds they have the right to tell Americans what to eat.

Wait, that's what the Democrats and the Republicans have been doing, most of all Barack H. Obama but also George H. and George W. Bush.  So Yess is wrong. We cannot expect the Republicans to think or act like Americans. The GOP is a big government Progressive Party just like the Democrats.  Do Americans want more government and economic death, or to rise to Yess's call for integrity within both parties or a third party? So far, the results are bleak.  Unlike their ancestors, today's America has declined so much that it is now a can’t-do nation.  

*Mitchell Langbert teaches at Brooklyn College. He blogs at http://www.mitchell-langbert.blogspot.com