Until repealed by Congress, Trump's duty is to enforce Obamacare's individual mandate

Note that there is no right to refuse to enforce laws one doesn't like in the enumerated powers of the executive branch.

       President Trump has announced that he may not enforce the individual mandate required under Obamacare. If he goes through with this it will effectively kill the program, which was already dying a not-so-slow death.
    I hate Obamacare and look forward to its demise, but Trump is wrong to simply stop enforcing the individual mandate for one reason: it’s the law. It’s the sworn duty of the president under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It’s really that simple. There is no provision allowing a president to refuse to enforce laws because Congress refused to "cooperate" with him in changing them.
    Of course, that view changed under the Obama presidency. When Congress refused to pass laws he wanted, he simply ruled by edict and his disciples were fine with it. Thus when Congress refused to grant amnesty or citizenship to millions of criminals in this country illegally, Obama simply quit enforcing our immigration laws. When Obamacare didn’t work exactly as he wanted, he unilaterally transferred money outside of the authority of law. Facing election pressures, Obama delayed various unpopular aspects of the law purely for electoral advantage. For the past eight years Obama has essentially operated as a dictator, and he got away with it because too many people were afraid to challenge our first black president for fear of being called “racist.”
    Now Trump is in office; the Obamaites who were so willing to go along with this massive usurpation of power into the executive branch are now going to discover that sauce for Obama’s goose is sauce for Trump’s gander. He can and will rescind most of Obama’s executive orders; in addition, Trump seems ready to follow Obama’s example of refusing to enforce those laws with which he disagrees. I expect to hear a lot of weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth by idiots wearing hats made to look like vaginas.
    I suppose Trump is entitled to demand the same rights as those exercised by Obama, but at some point Congress and the states need to use the courts to rein in our out-of-control executive branch. In the meantime Trump will use all of the tools of executive power that Obama created for him. Most of what he may do I will probably approve of, but there is value in obedience to the law and the Constitution.
    In our military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush (and H.W. Bush as well) sought authorization from Congress before committing U.S. troops to action. Obama chose to ignore the War Powers Act in his unjustified attack on our enemy-turned-ally, Libya, committing numerous war crimes in the process. The results have been disastrous (as I said they would be back in 2011), including the rise of ISIS and the Syrian civil war. Congress should have impeached him over this, but they lacked the will. It’s time to give the War Powers Act additional teeth by imposing criminal penalties on soldiers who knowingly violate it by participating in an offensive military action for more than 60 days without Congressional approval. Soldiers are expected to disobey orders given by commanders that violate the Geneva Convention or that are illegal, and they should be expected to disobey orders given in violation of the War Powers Act. Any soldier who can’t count to 60 has no business of being in the military.
    In 1974, in Train v. City of New York, the Supreme Court ruled that President Nixon could not “impound” funds appropriated by Congress; in other words, if the law said spend the money he had to spend the money. There can be no tolerance for the executive branch to simply refuse to enforce laws that the current president doesn’t like. I’m not prepared to advocate for the impeachment of Trump for engaging in behavior that is identical to that of Obama, but at some point Congress is going to have to involve the courts in restraining our nation’s out-of-control executive branch.
    I support Donald Trump and almost everything he says he wants to do as president, but as a matter of long-term policy Congress and the states must claw back their powers from the executive. The president’s job is to direct foreign policy, command the military, commission officers and judges subject to Senate approval, propose laws to Congress, and faithfully enforce those laws enacted by Congress. That’s it. The right to make laws and appropriate funds rests solely with the Congress, subject to a presidential right to make proposals and attempt to veto. The president is not supposed to  rule by edict or unilaterally refuse to enforce laws he doesn’t like. The fact that I may like the current president doesn’t make the executive’s usurpation of power any more acceptable from a constitutional standpoint.
    To get back to where I started, we can and should repeal Obamacare, but until it is properly repealed those provisions which are enacted into law should be enforced. It’s just the law, and it’s the job of the president to enforce our laws whether he likes them or not. Obama acted as a dictator; Trump should act like a president.

Based on the word's definition, it is Obama, Clinton and their supporters who are the fascists

    I’m not sure how many times I’ve heard Donald Trump being called a “fascist,” or even compared to Adolph Hitler over the past 12 months. Butthurt Democrats have gone into high gear since they learned voters don’t want the crap they’re peddling.
    The Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Rockettes are scheduled to perform for Trump’s inauguration, but many of the Rockettes are being allowed to opt out (can you imagine if they refused to perform for Obama?). And Mormon choir members are free not to attend, but for one member, Jan Chamberlin, that wasn’t enough; she posted a long Facebook post explaining that she was resigning from the choir on the grounds that Trump was a “fascist.”
    In a now-private post (a copy of which can be accessed here), Chamberlin said, “I also know, looking from the outside in, it will appear that Choir is endorsing tyranny and fascism by singing for this man.” She also wrote: “I only know I could never ‘throw roses to Hitler.’ And I certainly could never sing for him.” Of course, she wasn't being asked to sing for Trump; she was welcome not to attend, but she wanted to make a big splash.
    Chamberlin is just one of thousands of people who are spouting off daily, calling Trump and his supporters “fascists.” The term is a bit nebulous, but let’s see if we can try to define it.
    I think we can all agree that a fascist is one who wants to rule dictatorially or autocratically. A fascist is prone to seize control of the military, or use it for his own ends. A fascist is one who threatens other countries without justification. Is that a reasonable definition?
    Now let’s look at the views of Donald Trump and compare them to our current president, Barack Obama, and his would-be successor, Hillary Clinton. In this way we can determine whether or not Trump is or is not a fascist.
    Donald Trump seeks to enforce our nation’s immigration laws and obey his oath of office. Barack Obama violated his oath of office by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, an autocratic, totalitarian, and fascist action. Hillary Clinton said she would do the same.
   The street thuggery we have seen this year has been organized by Clinton supporters. Violence at Trump campaigns was carefully orchestrated by volunteers and paid homeless and mentally ill people who were instructed to start fights where they would be sure to get press coverage. Trump supporters have been violently beaten throughout the nation. All of this is identical to the tactics used by Adolph Hitler’s Brown Shirts in the 1930s to intimidate political opponents. Once again, it is Hillary Clinton and her supporters who are the fascists, not Trump.
    Whatever one’s opinion on both Gulf Wars, both George Bushes only did what Congress told them to do, and acted pursuant to authorization of the U.S. Congress. In Libya, Obama sought and gained permission from the United Nations – but not the U.S. Congress – to establish a no-fly zone over eastern Libya in order to aid Al Qaeda terrorists seeking to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi (Nobody has adequately explained why our nation chose to aid Al Qaeda terrorists in a fight against a man who had become a stalwart ally in the war against terror). Obama chose, without authorization, to simply bomb all of Libya and murder Gaddafi, killing many of his children and grandchildren in the process; Libya thus became an absolutely ungovernable hellhole. Not only were his actions a violation of international law and war crimes, but Obama intentionally violated the U.S. War Powers Act by failing to get Congressional approval of his military adventure within 30 days of the commitment of American troops. Hillary Clinton supported this. This type of military adventurism, in contravention of both international and American law, is the very core of what fascism is. Trump opposes this type of military adventurism. Thus it is Obama and Clinton who are fascists, not Trump.
    I wrote more than five years ago, when I was vociferously opposing Obama’s insane Libyan massacre, that Obama was intentionally creating a regional war throughout the Mid-East that would have terrible consequences. You can read my entire blog post by clicking here, but it’s important to note that I wrote this FIVE LONG YEARS AGO, when “violence” in Syria was simply a few street protests:

There have been numerous reports that the violence in Syria has been fomented by American agents. It's also been encouraged by the NATO bombing of Libyan loyalists. Perhaps with good cause, as the Syrians have been a puppet of Iran and an enemy of the U.S., but the unrest in the Arab world has been carefully planned and calculated. Of course, when America murders Arab children – and make no mistake NATO targeted children – it's just war. When Arabs murder American children it's terrorism. I confess I don't understand the difference. Why does America want turmoil in the Mid-East?

    By supporting terrorists and intentionally causing the Syrian civil war Obama and Clinton are responsible for more than 300,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 10 million people. There is not one whit of difference in killing these people by supporting terrorists and in killing them by loading them on a train and sending them to a concentration camp. Obama and Clinton are fascists in the mold of Adolph Hitler; they are truly evil.
    All Donald Trump wants to do is to enforce our laws, bring the global corporations to heel, and seek world peace. Those who would call him a “fascist” do so only in an attempt to distract people from the thuggishness and fascism of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The behavior and belief system of Obama and Clinton is pure, crystalline fascism in its most evil form, and it is the duty of all real Americans to oppose it.
    We can start by calling these fascists and their supporters “fascists.”

Under Obama America has been a force for evil, while Putin's Russia has been force for good

    Despondent, deranged Democrats angry over the rejection of Hillary Clinton by America’s proletariat are blaming Russia for their party’s defeat at the polls. Without a shred of evidence they claim that Russia hacked various campaign servers and released truthful but damaging information about Clinton and her campaign.
    We repeatedly are reminded that Russia is our enemy. Clinton promised to start a war with Russia if elected and most Democrats, along with kooky John McCain, found that idea just peachy.
    We’re told that we should simply believe our government if it says Russia hacked Hillary Clinton’s illegal email server. This is the same government that was convinced our ambassador to Libya was murdered by a spontaneous uprising of citizens upset over a Youtube video; these people are clueless at best. As long as Clinton and Obama are anywhere near the levers of power, nothing coming out of Washington is to be believed.
    All of this Russian bear-baiting is dangerous; enough sabre-rattling can cause a war. Those who are living in the past believe Russia is our enemy. It isn’t. Russia and the United States have common interests and no reason for conflict.
    Those who think Russia our enemy should ask themselves exactly “why” Russia is our enemy. For roughly 60 years Russia was our enemy because it wasn’t so much a country as it was an ideological movement, with the mission of spreading Communism to every corner of the globe. It was the fight against Communism, and the fight against Communism alone, which made Russia our enemy.
    America won the Cold War; Russia and Communism lost. Today Russia is a nationalistic country, and that’s a good thing. Nationalistic countries act in a logical, predictable, and usually reasonable manner. Russia today seeks to advance its interests, not to export its vision.
    Over the past eight years Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have exported revolution and terror to the Middle East. They attacked our ally in the war on terror, Libya, and left that country a hornet’s nest of terrorists. They supported the overthrow of our ally Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, who was replaced by the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood. Obama howled with rage when the Egyptian military threw the  terrorists out and held a new election in which the people chose secular leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as president; thank goodness the terrorists were thwarted.
    And then there is Syria, which is under the leadership of Bashar al-Assad, a modern, secular leader. Five years ago the CIA and Saudi Arabia funded violent street protests by Islamic Extremists against Assad that Obama and various neocon warmongers carefully fanned into a civil war, which they continued to fund. The result has been hundreds of thousands dead and an immigration crisis that is tearing Europe apart.
    My gut feeling is that Russia was not responsible for providing the accurate material that Wikileaks released which showed the Hillary Clinton and her supporters were liars and crooks. But if they did, they deserve our thanks.
    It’s time for a scorecard: Obama and the Democrats interfered with the Israeli elections. Obama traveled to Great Britain to campaign against Brexit, and threatened to treat Britain like dirt if they voted to "leave." Obama orchestrated the coup in the Ukraine which led to that country’s civil war. Obama supported terrorists throughout the Middle East, including al Qaeda, with disastrous results. If it is wrong to interfere in the affairs of other countries, why did Obama do it so much?
    In 1983 Ronald Reagan famously called the Soviet Union an Evil Empire; it was at the time. Yet today it is the United States, under the leadership of Barack Obama and various neocon warmongers, which has become the Evil Empire.
    The Democrats seem puzzled why they are unable to whip Americans into a frenzy of Russia-hatred. The reason is simple: Under Obama the United States has become a force for evil in the world, while under Vladamir Putin Russia has become a force for good. Russia is not our enemy; Obama and the Democrats are.

Ol' Stompy Foot finally got up the nerve to say 'radical Islam,' but it upset him greatly

James O'Keefe, dressed as Osama bin Laden, crossing the Rio Grande

    President Stompy Foot finally got up the nerve to say Voldemort.
    Actually the words he dared to use are “Radical Islam,” which up until now he has avoided like a Hogwarts student afraid to say the name of “He Who Must Not Be Named.” Obama insisted that the use of the phrase doesn’t matter; but it does matter, a lot.
    Honesty from our elected officials is important. The Obama administration has repeatedly tried to declare that acts of terror committed by radical Islamists are in instead simply garden-variety crimes. So he told us, with a straight face, that our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were murdered by citizens upset about a Youtube video, rather than admitting it was a planned terrorist attack. When a Muslim army major in regular contact with Islamist extremists murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas, while shouting "Allahu Akbar!,” the administration refused to label the attack terrorism, calling it instead “workplace violence.”
    And now we have the murder of 49 people in Orlando, murdered by a man who cheered the 9-11 attacks, who recently took two expensive trips to Saudi Arabia, and who pledged allegiance to ISIS during the murders. Obama blames the murders on a lack of gun control. And Obama insists that immigration wasn’t a factor in the Orlando shootings since the shooter was a native-born citizen. Of course, the man’s father, who has been known to support the Taliban, immigrated to this country from Afghanistan, and if he hadn't been allowed to do so his son would never have been a citizen; another reason to do away with Birthright Citizenship.
    The problem isn’t Youtube, an unfriendly workplace, or the administration’s inability to confiscate all of our weapons. The problem is that Obama and Hillary Clinton have done very little to stop terrorists, and in many instances have actively aided them. And we have no control whatsoever over our immigration process, as Obama simply refuses to enforce our laws. Our borders are so unguarded that filmmaker James O'Keefe was able to wade across the Rio Grande border wearing an Osama Bin Laden costume. He wasn't stopped, because we have virtually no border security.
    Libya was a success story of the Iraq war. When Muammar Gaddafi realized the United States meant business he agreed to give up that country’s weapons of mass destruction. While maintaining innocence, Gaddafi paid the family of each victim of the Pam Am Lockerbie bombing $10 million in compensation. Libya became a reliable ally of the United States in the war on terror.
    When the Arab Spring movement began, rebel groups with strong ties to al Qaeda began attacking government troops in eastern Libya. Obama immediately came to the aid of these terrorists, and used NATO to get the United Nations to authorize the use of force to create a no-fly-zone for eastern Libya; this was the only use of force the U.N. authorized. NATO immediately violated this order and began attacking the entire nation, as well as making assassination attempts on its leader. In one of these murder attempts NATO bombed the home of Gaddafi’s non-combatant son – killing several young children.
    The War Powers Act requires a president to seek Congressional approval for any military action lasting more than 30 days. Obama ignored this law, as he ignores most laws; it was more important to help terrorists than to obey the law. Obama won, Gaddafi was captured, sodomized, and murdered with his help, and eventually our ambassador to Libya would be murdered by some of the same terrorists that Obama supported. Libya is now and ungovernable mess and serves as a organizing point for ISIS. This was completely foreseeable, as I noted at the time.
    In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak had been one of our country’s strongest allies in the Mid-East. When the Arab Spring protests began, Obama rushed onto television to say that he must immediately be removed. With Obama’s support, the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood moved into action and was able to gain control of the government. When the military was able to remove the terrorists from office, Ol’ Stompy Foot really stomped his foot. He was furious that the terrorists that he had supported were no longer in charge of Egypt.
    Then there is Syria. I wrote five years ago that the Obama-Clinton team seemed determined to throw the entire Middle East into armed conflict. I pointed out the danger that Syria might descend into civil war. Everything I said would happen has happened. Obama and Saudi Arabia continue to support terrorists who are trying to topple Syria’s secular, elected government and replace it with a Sunni, Sharia-law regime.
    It is out of this huge power vacuum that ISIS was born. Even now the Obama administration continues to support Syrian terrorists; the result has a monumental disaster, as millions of refugees are trying to pour into Europe, or worse, the United States. There is no way to screen these refugees for ISIS agents or other extremists.
    Obama threw quite a tantrum over the fact that he was forced to say the words “Radical Islam.” But he finally said it! He told the truth, which for both he and Hillary Clinton is quite a difficult thing to do.
    To prevent future acts of terror we have to control our borders and limit immigration of those who might do us harm. We need a leader who will be honest and tell the truth. Clearly honesty and border control are beyond the Obama-Clinton pay grade. We need someone who can do the job.

I correctly said five years ago Obama was intentionally creating regional war in the Mid-East

    The entire world seems to be banging on Europe's door demanding entry, and the Europeans seem to lack the will to protect their homes. Greece is complaining that they are becoming a dumping ground for Europe's migrants; more on Greece in a minute.
    I should note that the blame for all of this mess falls primarily on Barack Obama, who in violation of international law and of the War Powers Act ruthlessly attacked Libya, our ally in the war on terror. Obama not only murdered that country's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, but also his children and grandchildren.
    I pointed out five years ago that America's actions in the Mid-East seemed intentionally designed to throw the entire region, including Syria, into turmoil.  It was my belief five years ago that the United States was disrupting the Middle East in order to limit China's access to oil. With today's low oil prices this may not seem to be a factor, but when prices rise China will have lost access to many of its former energy sources. What I did not anticipate was the Camp-of-The-Saints-style rush of humanity towards Europe, which threatens European civilization as we know it.
    Let me quote from my blog post of April 19, 2011:

It's begun to seep out that the United States has been actively supporting efforts to destabilize Syria for several years. Americans played a big role in the overthrow of the Egyptian government. I suspect America is working to destabilize the entire region.

Nations act out of self-interest. For France, Britain and the United States to make the decision so quickly to seek sanctions and to attack Libya suggest some motive other than concern for that country's citizens. NATO's decision to use just enough force to keep the government from restoring order suggests a desire to forment a long-term civil war, which should keep the entire region in turmoil for some time, thus endangering the region's oil production.

    If a nobody like me down in  Mississippi could understand the certain outcome of our Mid-East policies, then you can be sure that the experts in the State Department knew what would happen. The rise of ISIS, the Syrian Civil War, the death of hundreds of thousands, was all carefully planned. I thought it was to harm China, but it may well have been to promote Obama's vision of a world without borders, by pushing millions of desperate migrants into Europe.
    Europe has to find the will to simply refuse entry to these people. If they are fleeing a war zone, by all means provide them with tents and food in a safe location as close to their home country as possible, so that they may return as soon as hostilities have ceased. That is consistent with international law.
    As for Greece, they complain they are being stuck with the migrants as the Balkan nations erect fences to keep them from crossing their borders. And yet it is the Greeks themselves who are engaging in and profiting from human trafficking.
    These migrants aren't arriving from Turkey to the Greece mainland. They are arriving on various Greek islands. Greek ferry companies are then shuttling them to the mainland, at great profit. The head of the Greek ferry association announced last week that income from transporting migrants from the islands to the mainland had offset a drop in regular ferry income.
    All Greece has to do to solve Europe's migrant problem is to make it illegal to transport migrants from the islands to the mainland. All of these migrants had already reached a safe haven in Turkey; as such, they are not entitled to asylum and are all illegal immigrants. If they know they will be forced to live on various islands in tent cities forever, they will quit coming.
    If Greece wants to keep ferrying the illegal immigrants to the mainland, it's their business. But they have no right to complain about being stuck with them. That is the choice they are making by giving them a ferry ride.

Democrats who had Obama amnesia ended up looking silly, hurting their campaigns

    Now that the election is almost over, here's a note to really stupid Democrats: Don't deny voting for your party's president, particularly when he was at one time the blank slate upon which almost every American projected their hopes and dreams.
    As a Democrat, you darn well better have voted for the man unless you can articulate a good reason not to have. Most Democrats voted for Barack Obama. Most independents did, too. That's why he won.
    When a Democratic candidate was asked whether or not he (or she) voted for Obama the answer should have been "Yes!" This should be followed by whatever statement the candidate wished to make explaining reservations and disappointment about the president. In other words, "Yes, I voted for him, but like many of you, I've been disappointed."
    Instead we've had these debates where Democratic candidates have looked like absolute fools as they've tried not to answer questions about whether or not they voted for Obama. Of course they voted for him. And I have far more respect for the candidate who would say, "Of course I did."
    I disagree with much of what Barack Obama has done, as do most Americans, both Republicans and Democrats. But the fact is that he has advanced what is supposed to be the Democratic agenda. That doesn't mean he should be immune from criticism, because he deserves a lot.
    I'm not suggesting that Democrats should have embraced Obama this election. But those who refused to even admit they voted for him looked like idiots. If they can't be honest about whether or not they voted for a man who was awarded a Nobel Prize just for being elected, can they be honest about anything?

Wars, disease, natural disaster all disrupt the food supply; plan ahead or eat dirty turnips

     Shown above for your viewing pleasure is Scarlett O'Hara declaring that she will "never be hungry again." It's provided as a reminder that there have been times in our history when food has been in short supply.
    If the O'Hara family had purchased 50 cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup at Thanksgiving for 50 cents a can, 50 pounds of pasta for 50 cents a pound, 50 pounds of rice for $18, 50 pounds of sugar at 25 cents per pound, and so on and kept it all in an emergency supply closet they might have weathered the early days of Reconstruction with plenty to eat. And since such stockpiling inevitably reduces one's grocery bill, Mr. O'Hara would have had extra money to invest in something besides Confederate war bonds. Perhaps he would have been able to pay the taxes on Tara.
    But they didn't, and so were reduced to eating raw turnips and wearing curtains.
    Each of us has the same choices that the O'Hara family had. We can choose to pay too much for groceries, and should disaster strike be reduced to eating dirty turnips just pulled from the ground. Or we can buy large quantities of heavily discounted, non-perishable groceries when they go on deep discount. In the event of a disaster causing empty grocery shelves we can eat out of the pantry for a couple of months.
    These are perilous times. An extremist Muslim group has now established itself in a territory and declared itself a nation. These terrorists are absolutely ruthless, and if they can find a way to harm the United States, they will.
    The world is at war with Muslim extremists and the extremists are winning. Ruthlessness can be an effective weapon of war; just watch Apocalypse Now. Those who enjoy filming themselves slitting the throats of innocent people and killing Christian children will do anything they can to harm those they hate -- and that means us.
    In other news, the Ebola virus appears to be highly contagious in its current form and is spreading around the world. A Spanish nurse who treated an Ebola victim has come down with the disease despite taking every precaution. And though the disease is not believed to be airborne, many scientists now believe that it can be spread through a direct or close proximity cough or sneeze. The Ebola virus has an extremely long incubation period of up to 21 days and symptoms often come on slowly, allowing those infected with the disease to easily spread it. The checking of temperature of those boarding airplanes is absolutely ineffective as a means of screening for the disease.
    War zones are the greatest incubators for infectious diseases known to man. Look at a map and count the places where no government is truly in control. Tremble in fear, for our world has become a giant Petri dish.
    The icing on the cake is the fact that Barack Obama has refused to police our nation's borders, allowing those carrying deadly diseases and terrorists to enter the country at will. The terrorists who will launch the next attack are likely already in this country, and now there is nothing we can do to stop them.
    One final worry: there is about a one-half to one percent chance per year of a major natural disaster that will be so severe that it will completely disrupt our food distribution network. Scientists say it is a matter not of if, but when we will suffer a Carrington Event that will likely cripple our entire electrical grid, and perhaps disable virtually all motor vehicles.
    And let's not forget the possibility of a major earthquake in the central United States. One of the largest earthquakes in continental U.S. history was the New Madrid earthquake of 1811. There has been a dramatic increase in earthquake activity along this fault line and Wal-Mart has started to prepare for a New Madrid disaster.
    Enough gloom and doom for now. The fact is that everything is probably going to be just fine.
    Of course, if one were to be forced to play Russian Roulette one is "probably" going to live. That doesn't make it a good idea. "Probably" simply isn't good enough. We need to hope for the best but spend a small amount of time and effort preparing for the worst.

Illegal immigrants now pouring in by trainloads, but a border fence would solve everything

Trainloads of poor, disease-ridden welfare seekers head to the
U.S. every day as a result of Obama's refusal to enforce our laws.

    A cargo train derailed in Mexico last week. Thirteen hundred minors seeking welfare and amnesty in the United States were aboard. Thirteen hundred on a single train!
    Such is the flood of humanity that has been unleashed by our jackass-in-chief's refusal to enforce our immigration laws and his insistence that all criminals in this country illegally would be granted amnesty, citizenship, and the benefits of the welfare state for life.
    Conservatives warned that even the hint of amnesty would bring on new waves of illegal immigration. Liberals simply will not or can not listen. And so now what we said would happen; America is being invaded.
    The conservative position has always been that we are willing to discuss immigration and even amnesty, but we have to secure our national borders first. Having a non-porous border is what makes a nation a nation.
    Obama has ridiculed conservatives for wanting to build a border fence. "Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat!"
    Right now we don't even have a fence over much of the border. Illegal immigrants can simply walk over the dry Rio Grande and enter the country. Children often allow themselves to be caught immediately, as they have been told they will never have to leave and will have welfare for life.
    We need a fence, and believe it or not, many experts say some type of "moat" is actually needed as part of proper fencing in order to keep trucks or armored vehicles from just getting a running start and ramming through a wire structure. As for the alligators, why not? It's our moat, after all. Good fences make good neighbors. Moats filled with hungry alligators make for better neighbors.
    There has been a great deal of debate about the ending of unemployment benefits. Democrats want them to continue for life. A better idea is to offer every American a job helping to construct a border fence between the United States and Mexico. If there aren't enough immigration judges and clerks to handle the backlog of cases, let's hire more.
    If we make it physically impossible for these criminals to walk across the border people will stop – drum roll please – walking across the border!

Obama says amnesty will encourage 'best and brightest,' while new wards of the state pour in

Does this look like the very best and brightest
Latin America has to offer?

   Several years ago when our Idiot-in-Chief violated his oath of office and quit enforcing our immigration laws, virtually all conservatives pointed out that we could expect additional hordes of illegal aliens flooding across the border.
    And of course we were right; conservatives are rarely wrong. Now we have hundreds of thousands of children streaming into the country in search of free food, free housing, and free medical care, all to be paid for with additional taxes on those of us who are here legally.
    These are literally the dregs of Latin America society: unskilled, uneducated workers likely to burden our welfare system and jails for generations to come.
    Oh, and please my Left-Wing-Nut friends, spare me the argument our ancestors were illegal immigrants when they entered the country in the 1600s. Can anyone deny that the Indians would be far better off today if they had possessed the political will and police power to prevent European entry into North America? Open borders ruined the lives of American Indians and open borders will ruin our lives, too.
    Obama claims all we need to do is just grant legal status and amnesty to anyone who enters the country illegally and all of our problems will be solved. "If we want to keep attracting the best and the brightest from beyond our shores, we're going to have to fix our immigration system, which is broken," Obama said during a break between his frequent golf games.
    The problem is that most of the illegal immigrants coming from Latin America in recent years simply aren't the best and brightest. They are the uneducated, unskilled, and sometimes criminal, and the United States does not need them.
    There was a time when an immigrant coming to this country would either work hard or starve to death, and as a result we could allow virtually unlimited immigration; new entrants would succeed or starve. Today we have the welfare state, and no citizen or legal resident has to work. We cannot afford to allow even a single unskilled, uneducated, low-IQ immigrant to enter our country and become a burden on society.
    Nor can we allow unskilled immigrants to depress wages for our own citizens. We need to put the sorry, leaching fruit farmers on notice that they do not have a right to $15-an-hour illegal-immigrant labor, and they will need to start paying Americans $30- to $40-an-hour to do the job. There are no jobs that Americans won't do, just jobs that Americans won't do for relatively low wages in relation to the difficulty of the work.
    If the United States wants to attract the best and brightest we can do so by offering legal residency and citizenship to anyone making a minimum score on the SAT or ACT, perhaps a 1200 math/verbal on the SAT or a 27 on the ACT. These scores are low enough to be within reach of those who really work at it while high enough to ensure that those qualifying truly will be among the "best and brightest."
    A couple of years ago I met a young Chinese guy at a bar in Barcelona. He had attended graduate school at the University of Illinois but couldn't obtain legal residency in the United States. It's a shame, because he would have been a great addition to our nation. But since he couldn't get legal residency he left and now lives in Hong Kong, and he won't be back.
    And that's the problem with the Obama immigration plan. Potential immigrants with high IQs and a respect for the law have excluded themselves from residency while low-IQ criminals just keep pouring in.
    A rational immigration policy starts with a several layers of border fencing, border moats, and border minefields, along with immediately and permanent deportation of anyone in the country illegally. We must protect our borders first. Then we should let in immigrants, and lots of them, who demonstrate the ability to contribute more to our nation than they will consume in services.
    A rational immigration policy welcomes the best and brightest, but shuts the door on the worst and dullest. Sadly, our current policy does just the opposite.

Liberals reject solutions in favor of hot air in global warming debate

    President Obama, desperate to find an issue to make himself look presidential, has seized on that favorite chestnut of the left, global warming. It's urgent, we're told.
    Well, if it's urgent then stop lying about it and start doing something. Be honest! Liberals keep telling us that we need to cut carbon emissions, yet methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Although methane accounts for only eight percent of greenhouse gasses, it is 21 times more effective at trapping solar radiation than carbon dioxide. And methane has increased far more than carbon dioxide over the past 300 years.
    And the primary source of methane in the atmosphere? Cow flatulence and cow burps. So reduce beef consumption and methane production drops automatically. Of course, this doesn't allow the United Nations the opportunity to levy huge taxes on highly developed energy-consuming nations to send to the pest holes of the world, which is what a lot of this global warming blather is about.
    Game theory tells us that getting everyone to cut carbon or methane emissions is virtually impossible. Unless every single nation and person on the planet participates, those who voluntarily cut emissions will be at a competitive disadvantage. But that doesn't mean we are helpless in the face of global warming.
    The book Superfreakanomics has a chapter which describes numerous very inexpensive solutions to the global warming problem. Oddly enough, no one seems interested in solutions.
    For example, in the 1970s the fear was that the planet was cooling. This was because high levels of sulfur dioxide pollution were indeed filtering out solar radiation. As this pollution was eliminated, the planet warmed.
    One scientist has proposed pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to offset global warming. This could be done relatively cheaply, with no negative pollution effects. Many other solutions have been suggested, such as putting biodegradable reflective confetti in the upper atmosphere to provide temporary cooling without permanently altering the biosphere. No one is interested. Liberals just want to tax and transfer.
    Of course, not everyone loses from global warming, as both The Washington Post and The Atlantic have noted. Many parts of the United States are currently too cold to be livable to the average person. If they warmed a bit that wouldn't be a bad thing.
    And people do have feet. When the federal government ruins a local school system, people slowly move away to areas with better schools. If an area should develop an unpleasant climate, people will drift to more pleasant locales. If less of the planet is inhabited, fewer greenhouse gasses will be produced. It's self-regulating.
    So let's quit with all the liberal hot air. It's warming the atmosphere!

When patients fail to pay their Obamacare premiums health care providers are left holding the bag

    The important thing to understand about Obamacare is that virtually everything is broken. It's a bad, poorly thought out law.
    It had to be, by the very nature of it. The Democrats rammed it through Congress as part of a reconciliation bill. Even the people supporting it had little idea what they were voting for. Nancy Pelosi made headlines when she explained that the bill would have to be passed before people would really understand what was in it.
    The American people are starting to understand and many simply do not like it.
    One little feature of Obamacare is that anyone purchasing subsidized insurance is automatically covered for four months after making a single payment. In other words, there is a 90-day grace period before policies are cancelled.
    I suppose that is something that can be priced into insurance. But what happens next is the shocker.
    During the first 30 days of the 90-day grace period insurance claims will be paid and processed. Any claims during the next 60 days simply will not be paid unless the premiums are paid.
    So doctors and hospitals will be told that a patient is insured, only to find out later that they aren't going to be paid.
    Obamacare already has really low reimbursement rates for doctors. In California, for example, a majority of doctors are simply refusing to see those insured through exchanges. They can't afford to. Refusing to pay doctors and hospitals for services provided is going to make them even more loathe to accept exchange insurance.
    Failure to pay premiums is a big problem with Obamacare. The administration has been trying to hide the numbers, but roughly 20 percent of those who signed up never paid their first premium, and that may be a low number. So instead of 4.2 million being enrolled through the exchanges the number is more like 3.3 million or fewer. If 20 percent of this number eventually defaults on their insurance payments, then roughly 600,000 people will be able to run up doctor and hospital bills under the guise of being insured. Providers will be falsely told that their patients are insured only to find out later that they are being stiffed.
    No doubt many people are going to be upset over the fact that they've paid for insurance and can't find a doctor to accept it. How bad is the problem? Well, it depends on the state. Forbes did an analysis of the availability of specialists and found substantially fewer participate in Obamacare.

    The chart at right shows specialist availability offered by Athen in its PPO plans versus its Obamacare Bronze plans. In some cases the differences are extreme. For example, Anthem PPO customers in Indiana have a choice of 1055 cardiologists to choose from in their plan. Obamacare customers have 74. In other words, only one in about 14 doctors in its regular PPO plans are willing to accept Obamacare patients.
    Anthem was chosen for the comparison because the data was readily available, and its exchange plans tend to be as good or better than most.
    Understand that President Obama has declared policies which don't cover things like maternity care for senior citizens junk. But most Americans would prefer to pay less for their insurance, forego the free birth control they don't need, maternity benefits they don't want, and so forth, and instead have a wide choice of doctors who would be glad to see them.
    Roughly half of American doctors aren't going to accept Obamacare, and that number is likely to rise after they don't get paid.
    Even worse, because of all the money being spent on Obamacare there is no money to pay for the annual Medicare/Medicaid "doc fix," which increases reimburse levels for these programs. Doctors are about to take a 24 percent pay cut and many will respond by refusing to see Medicaid patients.
    So the problem isn't limited to just purchasers of junk Obamacare policies. Soon Granny won't be able to find a doctor, either.
    Thanks Obama!

Jackson Jambalaya: HUD wants to bring Section 8 to a home near you

Jackson Jambalaya: HUD wants to bring Section 8 to a home near you:  The Wall Street Journal opined about some HUD social engineering and neighborhoods. Yup, Assistant Secretary and his HUD minions want to make sure your neighbors meet their criteria...

Kingfish at Jackson Jambalaya has an interesting post about how the government is working hard to destroy neighborhoods by forcing cities to rezone upscale neighborhoods for Section 8 housing and by attempting to force landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers, even though by law the program is supposed to be voluntary. Read it all by clicking on the link above.

A study in Memphis found that the city's crime wave in recent years was directly related to the sprinkling of Section 8 residents through the city. The Atlantic had an outstanding article on this, called America's Murder Mystery.

Now the Obama administration wants to host a Murder Mystery Party in your neighborhood!

British gave highest respect at Reagan funeral but Obama sends his ill-regards

    Two of the greatest leaders of the 20th Century were Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. There's just no question about it, whether you agreed with their politics or not.
    When former-president Reagan died, British Prime Minister Tony Blair attended the funeral, as did former prime minister Thatcher, Prince Charles, along with a bevy of current and former world elected officials.
    It should be noted that Tony Blair is a socialist. But even though his politics are sharply different in many ways from those of Reagan, he attended the former president's funeral as a sign of respect for the close ties between our countries, made stronger under the Reagan administration.
    Sad to say our country lacks such leadership. President Obama has snubbed the British by sending only a few has-been government officials to represent the United States.  (Joining Argentina!). The House of Representatives is sending a delegation, but Obama's snub is really a disgrace and a black mark against our nation. This isn't the first time he's shown his disdain for the British. After his election he ordered that a bust of Winston Churchill given to the United States by the British be removed from the White House and returned. He couldn't have the White House sullied with such heroes, I suppose; had to make room for the Che Guevara memorials.
    People wonder why people who hate, despise, and detest Obama hate, despise, and detest the man so much. Perhaps the reason is because he is so very hateable, despicable, and detestable.

Choices our elitist, hypocrite president makes for his children are fair target for scrutiny

    The NRA has gone beyond the pale by dragging President Obama's children into the gun control debate, or so claim his leftist supporters and such RINOs as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
    I disagree.
    If Malia or Sasha Obama should miss a homework assignment, get in trouble at school, or break up with a boyfriend, that's a private matter. But the choices politicians make for their children are a matter of public concern, particularly when these politicians are able to make choices for their children that are denied to most Americans.
    For example, Malia and Sasha attend an exclusive private school, Sidwell Friends School. The public schools in Washington, D.C. are pretty dreadful for bright children, and I don't blame the president for sending his children elsewhere.
    But I do blame the president for making choices for his children that are denied to most Americans. Obama has consistently opposed efforts to provide vouchers so that all Americans, regardless of income, can enjoy the same choices that he has made for his children. No, vouchers won't gain admittance to elite schools for dull, disruptive children, but they will ensure that every bright, well-behaved child in America can get a decent education.
    You see, Obama is a typical liberal elitist. He prattles on about how wonderful public schools are, but he doesn't send his own children to public school. Yet when ordinary Americans seek the same opportunities, Obama slams the door in their face. For him, it's far more important to keep the teachers unions happy than it is to provide a decent education for America's kids. And if huge swaths of American society receive sub-par educations as a result, why should he care? He's got his!
    Obama and other liberals initially pooh-poohed the idea of having armed guards in our schools, even as the Sidwell Friends Schools has an 11-person security team. These aren't Secret Service employees; they work for Sidwell, albeit in shifts. Not all of these employees are licensed to carry weapons, but some are policemen who presumably are armed.
    So once again Obama is happy to enjoy a benefit for his own children while seeking to deny the same rights to ordinary Americans. It's wrong and it's a fair target for public comment. If there are errors in the ad, complain about the errors, not the ad itself.
    The Obama administration is now coming around to the idea of encouraging schools to have "resource officers;" presumably such officers will be armed. But when NRA Executive Direct Wayne LaPierre made this suggestion three weeks ago he was treated like a nut.
    In any event, the president and his family are certainly entitled to a little bit of privacy. But that curtain of privacy deserves to be raised when the president makes choices for his family or his children that aren't available to ordinary Americans.
    Many thanks to the NRA for producing an outstanding advertisement. If the president doesn't like it the solution isn't to stop running these types of ads. The solution is for him to stop being an elitist hypocrite.

 

Legal scholar points out that Obama's use of autopen may not be valid signature

    Did President Obama intentionally set up a court fight over the recent tax bill passed by Congress?
    Obama apparently left Washington without signing the bill and then ordered that the bill be signed by "autopen."
    A blog post by legal scholar Eugene Voloch, a blogger and professor at UCLA, points out that such electronic or proxy signatures have traditionally only been valid when the person ordering the signature has actually been present. Obama was not and therefore the signature is arguably not valid (although a 2011 White House legal opinion concludes that they are).
    Voloch cites the opinion of law professor Terry Turipseed, who has published a paper arguing the traditional opinion that the signer of the document must be present.
    Ordinarily a bill becomes law after 10 days with or without a president's signature. The only exception is when Congress adjourns within 10 days of the bill's passage, as occurred in this case. Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states:

If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a Law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a Law.

    Thus by not being present when the bill was signed by autopen an argument can be made that Obama has exercised a pocket veto, since Congress adjourned almost immediately after the bill's passage. Obama can, of course, resign the bill. And it may be that the autopen signature will be found to be valid even though Obama wasn't present.
    But why risk a court fight over the issue? Obama was present and able to sign the bill. Why not sign it before going to Hawaii? Or why not have the physical bill brought to him for signing?
    Someone somewhere is likely to challenge the validity of this law. It seems silly to create a mini-Constitutional crisis when there is no need for one, unless that's exactly what Obama was seeking to do.

There isn't much gender gap, just a marriage gap; so let's stop punishing those who work and marry!

    In looking at the recent election returns, one thing is certain: Republicans don’t need to worry about the gender gap. They need to worry about the marriage gap.

    We often hear about Soccer Moms and gender gaps, and there is a difference between voting preferences between married men and married women. But the real  gap is between married people and single people. Exit polls from the Nov. 6 election show that Mitt Romney won a majority of both married men and married women, taking 60 and 53 respectively. Single men only gave Romney 40 percent of the vote and only 31 percent of single women voted for Romney.

    Single people just occupy a different space from the Ward and June Cleaver world experienced by most married couples. And women who insist on becoming single mothers find the job is a difficult one. They invariably want lots and lots of government aid and support financed through taxation.

    There was a time when single parenthood was an accident – a mistake where a young mother misjudged a young man – either through an unwed pregnancy or through an ill-advised and brief marriage – and decided to turn lemons into lemonade.

    What used to happen by accident now happens on purpose. Unwed pregnancy is no longer an accident; it’s become a lifestyle choice. Regardless of income level, children raised by single parents have a higher risk of a host of poor life outcomes.

    We’re now to the point that 40 percent of all children born in this country are born out-of-wedlock. Some economists say nearly half of the economic inequality in the United States is due to the negative consequences of single parenthood. It’s not tax policy causing inequality; it’s a failure of women to marry before having kids. And I suspect this inequality grows over time.

    How did we get here? Obviously welfare got us here, but it was the welfare state combined with our reluctance to provide any benefits to families where there was a man about the house. A good look at our various relief programs illustrates that the only way to qualify for help is to make oneself a failure.

    If we want to turn this ship around, we have to stop punishing people for being married and stop punishing people for working. As much as I hate Obamacare, we need to recognize that the reason many women don’t get married is so they can qualify for Medicaid. We need to find a way to provide free medical care and maternity care to all American women who are pregnant or who have young children, regardless of income level, regardless of whether there is a man in the house.

    We need to provide every American child with a free lunch at school. No more paying people to see if the children qualify. Just serve every child a free lunch regardless of income. It wouldn’t cost that much.

    A study was released recently that said the various branches of government spent $60,000 per year per household caring for the 16.8 million American households in poverty. Obviously the bulk of this money goes to overhead. Instead of means testing for welfare, we need to just adopt some modest, across-the-board payroll taxes and then make each and every welfare program universal.

    If one citizen gets a free lunch, everybody gets a free lunch. If one citizen gets a housing subsidy, every citizen gets one for the same amount. If one citizen gets food stamps, every citizen gets food stamps.

    With universality, there is no more incentive to fail. Low-income women can marry without being punished, and if they get a job, they still keep their benefits. So let’s stop rewarding failure and punishing success, and hopefully put an end to the “marriage gap.”

More Republicans are voting early, but Shelby County, Tenn., has fewer early voters this year

    The Shelby County Daily News reports that the early voting period has ended in Shelby County, Tenn., and I think the numbers show the kind of problem that Barack Obama is having all across the nation with an unenthusiastic Democratic base and a Republican base that is chomping at the bit.
    There is no way to know exactly who the Shelby County voters cast their ballots for -- after all it is a secret ballot -- but the overall numbers are down. In 2008, 254,362 Shelby Countians cast their ballots early. This year 232,690 cast early ballots. And these numbers are down despite the fact that there are a lot more Republican early voters this year.
    In 2008, the early voting was overwhelmingly in favor of Obama. And of course in Shelby County it will continue to be. But nationally a majority of early voters have been Romney voters. One has to assume a higher percentage of this year's early Shelby voters were Republican.
    Based on the 2008 figures, about 60 percent of the people in Shelby County who are going to vote have voted. Roughly another 150,000 will show up on election day. But with lower early voter numbers, and higher Republican participation in in early voting, it can only mean there are a lot fewer votes for Obama out there this year.
    Of course, in Tennessee it won't matter; it was going for Romney no matter what. And there is the possibility that Democrats haven't tried as hard to get out the vote. But don't surprised when Romney achieves a blowout in Tennessee on Tuesday. And if Shelby County is representative of of what is going on around the nation, look for Romney to win the election.

Predicting effect of Hurricane Sandy on election like predicting the weather itself

    Hurricane Sandy is the ultimate wildcard in the final week of the election cycle. Will it help Romney or Obama? I don't know.
    I think it will freeze the race in place a little bit. All eyes will be focused on weather news. Of course, Romney has saved a tremendous amount of his advertising budget for the last 10 days of the campaign, so presumably lots of eyes will see these campaign commercials. Except perhaps for the needed eyes of Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, where the electricity may be out.
    Romney's last week of advertising is likely to be upbeat in nature. Campaigns beat up their opponents all through the election cycle and then go positive in the last week. This positive message will play well during a time of disaster. Of course, Obama is going to be able to do a better job of providing disaster relief than Bush was during Katrina, since the recipients Hurricane Sandy aid probably won't be shooting at those trying to help them.
    Early voting was shut down Saturday and will be shut down for the next few days on the Eastern Seaboard. Coaxing people to go to the polls who might not have the discipline to go on Election Day was considered an important part of the Obama election strategy.
    Obama is no doubt glad to have everyone's attention turned away from Libya, where the most recent reports are that troops were set ready, willing, and able to rescue our ambassador and other Americans but that he refused to allow it. Will we find out before Election Day why Gen. Carter Ham was relieved of duty? Was it because he was about to rescue our citizens without receiving authorization to do so? Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, this issue may be blown away until after the election.
    There is some evidence that unpleasant events having absolutely nothing to do with the election can affect the outcome; voters tend to vote against the party in power when they are in a disgruntled mood. A Reuters new story suggests the outcome of the Ohio State-Illinois football game this weekend might well have an effect on voting behavior the following Tuesday. One study has found that a victory by a popular home team is worth 1.6 percentage points to the incumbent candidate. So if Ohio State loses, unhappy voters might take their frustrations out on Obama.
    The same article cites a study that shows that voters in coastal New Jersey towns apparently took out their frustrations over a spate of shark attacks on Woodrow Wilson, who was running for re-election, with these findings based on voting patterns on inland towns versus those of the coastal ones.
    Will voters take their frustrations about Hurricane Sandy out on Obama? My guess is that it will be too soon. If anything, the storm may help the president as there tends to be a "let's all pull together" attitude after a major disaster. It's only when hardships continue that people become frustrated and surly, and by that time the election will have come and gone.
    More problematic for Obama may be getting voters to the polls. Republicans tend to be more reliable voters; Democrats require more cajoling. If voting requires additional hardship in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Hampshipe and Maine's Second Congressional District it could be a real game changer.
    It's sort of like watching a football game in a rainstorm. We all know the odds have been changed, but most of us don't know which team will benefit.

Does Obama care enough about the poor to let someone give them $5 million?

    Does Barack Obama really care about the poor?
    He says he does, but that's just good politics. Donald Trump has offered to give $5 million to the charity of President Obama's choice. All Obama has to do is release his college records and passport applications.
    That seems reasonable enough. Would you release your college records and passport applications in exchange for a $5 million (or even $5,000) charitable donation? I would. I bet Mitt Romney would. He gives millions to charity every year anyway -- on a percentage basis about twice of what Obama gives.
    Let's hold both candidates to the same standard. Certainly it's time for Romney to agree to release his college records and passport applications in exchange for someone giving a $5 million charitable donation to his charities. It's time to see which candidate is really caring.
    So does Obama really care about the poor or not? We'll see.

As usual, nma.tv has best debate coverage

    Nma.tv says Obama won the Oct. 16, 2012 Town Hall debate by a nose. I wish we had this type of news coverage on the major networks!