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Video: Whoopi says Polanski didn’t commit “rape-rape”

How low will Hollywood go in defending Roman Polanski? Former Oscar hostess Whoopi Goldberg tries to parse the meaning of rape between rape and something called “rape-rape” — which, if you read the testimony of Polanski’s victim, Polanski literally did by raping her and then sodomizing her. Goldberg tries to argue that Polanski pled guilty to statutory rape, not actual rape, which is true, and that he served a sentence — which is absolutely false

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Big Leader, Big Government

The omnipresent leader

I don’t recall many schoolteachers leading hymms to George Bush when he shifted the ground under Saddam Hussein and changed his world. Something tells me no one in the educational establishment would be leading musical worship sessions for the equally historic President Sarah Palin or President Condoleeza Rice, either.

The guy is
everywhere, all the time. He’s been stalking the American voter all summer, muttering the ever-changing details and phony rationale for his health-care takeover plan. Mercifully, he stopped just short of filling our inboxes with spam emails, or dropping pop-up spyware onto our computers. I have a recurring nightmare that the Microsoft Office Assistant will rap on my monitor to get my attention, and start talking about the urgent need for health-care reform.

The omnipresence of our political leadership will only grow worse over time, if we don’t begin scaling back the super-State. Everything in life has become politicized, and politics have become highly centralized. The President, and the majority leadership in Congress, have an increasing amount of influence over every aspect of your daily life – not in a remote theoretical sense, but literally. If the government takes over health care, your body will become property of the State, which will have a vested interest in controlling your diet, exercise, and everything else that might affect your consumption of tightly-rationed medical resources. The cap-and-trade bill puts the federal government in charge of your kitchen appliances and light bulbs. These latest extensions of federal power come after decades of more gradual increases.

Once the functions of government move beyond essential expenses, such as national defense and border security, the rationale behind every additional tax dollar is based on the greater wisdom of the political class. You cannot be trusted to support the arts, care for the indigent, respect the environment, or do any of the other things Washington spends your tax money on. Soon, you will not be trusted to manage your own health care – in fact, under the Max Baucus health-care plan, you would be jailed for failing to purchase government-approved health insurance. If all of this money is taken from you because you can’t be trusted to spend it wisely, it follows that the people spending it must possess supreme wisdom. Likewise, the displaced private owners of a nationalized industry must be inferior to the politicians who now control it. No rationale for Big Government can escape these conclusions.



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Constitution

Found information about this in a book I'm reading, "Not a Suicide Pact; The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency," by Richard A. Posner.

SCOTUS case, "United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp."

http://www.enotes.com/supreme-court-drama/united-states-v-c urtiss-wright-export-corp

"Justice George Sutherland, writing for the 7-1 majority, noted that this case fell into an area of governing not specifically addressed by the Constitution. However, he found that simply by the Unites States being a sovereign (politically independent) nation before the Constitution was written, that it had certain inherent (natural) powers to conduct international relations regardless if written in the Constitution or not. The United States had to meet international responsibilities. Sutherland wrote,

[T]he investment of the federal government with the powers of [conducting foreign affairs] did not depend upon . . . the Constitution. The powers to declare and wage war, to conclude peace, to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations with other sovereignties, if they had never been mentioned in the Constitution, would have vested [fixed] in the federal government as necessary concomitants [parts] of nationality [being an independent nation] . . .

"Further, Sutherland wrote it was primarily the president's responsibility to carry out foreign policy and he did not need an act of Congress before taking action. Sutherland commented that the president has "plenary [absolute] and exclusive [not shared] power . . . as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations — a power which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress." No specific grant of foreign affairs powers to the president needs to be provided in the Constitution. Unlike domestic issues where Congress must supply clear guidelines to the executive branch when delegating congressional powers, delegation of foreign affairs powers can be broad giving the president considerable discretion (choice) on how to proceed."

SCOTUS held that the USA acquired the powers of a sovereign nation by its successful revolution against England rather then by a grant in the Constitution; the nation is prior to the Constitution.

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Incompetence

Continuing resolutions?

Democrats control a solid majority in the House of Representatives.  They have a nearly filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate.  Their party controls the White House.  With all of that power, one would expect the budgetary process to flow smoothly enough for Congress to pass appropriations normally, especially since budget bills are not subject to a filibuster in the Senate.

What the heck are Democrats doing on Capitol Hill?

Democrats played this game for the 2009 budget in order to avoid having to negotiate the budget with outgoing President George W. Bush.  They stalled through continuing resolutions and then passed a pork-filled omnibus bill early this year, which Obama obligingly signed.  Obama has hardly demanded spending discipline from this Congress and has shown nothing but obsequious obeisance to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in allowing them to shape the actual bills for his legislative agenda all year long.

They have no excuse in 2010.  Bush is no longer the problem.  Republicans don’t have the votes to stop a budget bill without serious conflict within the Democratic caucuses.  This is flat-out incompetence and failure to focus on Congress’ primary responsibility of producing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year on time.


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News

Barack Hussein Obama Serves Up America on Silver Platter to UN Freak Show
Obama won the election by ten million votes but does not have a mandate to do this. He went to the United Nations, apologized for America, surrendered our super power status, and rejected  American Exceptionalism. We have a disaster on our hands.

Khadafy Sounds Like a Democrat. He's a Kook Inspired by Barack Obama!
Khadafy called for free medicine for all, and demanded an investigation into the JFK assassination. He's a genuine kook, and he's inspired by Barack Obama!

"Barack Hussein Obama has contributed nothing to the success of this great nation. He is constantly tearing down this country. He is disrespectful to the American people."

Democrats Eye Mike Dukakis, The Loser, to Replace Kennedy in Senate
A Limbaugh adage affirmed: Failure is a resume enhancement for Democrats.




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The No-Nukes President?

Obama to slash nukes: Guardian

This should not come as a big surprise, given Barack Obama’s political history, but his drive to drastically restructure the policy on American nuclear weapons could have a far-reaching impact on global security.  Obama will team with Gordon Brown to push for an aggressive schedule of disarmament, so aggressive that even the French have begun to object, according to the Guardian.  Obama apparently hopes to win concessions from Russia and eventually from Iran and North Korea by setting an example

None of this comes out of the blue.  Obama has always echoed strains of the no-nukes crowd in which he marinated in the Ivy League during the 1980s.  His antipathy towards missile defense systems during the campaign hinted at this kind of movement in nuclear-weapons policy.  The Left has often remarked on the supposed hypocrisy of demanding denuclearization of North Korea and prevention of nuclearization of Iran while we keep our own nukes and presumably give tacit agreement to others, especially India and Israel.


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The End Of Government Redistribution Of Speech?

McCain-Feingold takes a hit

For years, many of us in the blogosphere have argued that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as McCain-Feingold, violates the fundamental Constitutional exercise of free speech, especially in politics, which the founders expressly intended to protect.  The Supreme Court failed in its duty to protect the First Amendment when it had the chance, as did George W. Bush when he signed the legislation into law.  Finally, a federal appellate court has recognized the insult to the Constitution that the BCRA represents

The opinions were interesting for their recalculation over the last few years on the right of Americans to organize into political action groups. The main opinion
noted that political contributions count as “speech” and that restricting them runs into First Amendment issues


. . . it is not Congress’ job to redistribute speech.  It’s also not their job to redistribute wealth, which a court will someday make plain, based on Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.  Political action groups (and for that matter, incumbents) should have equal opportunity to raise money and conduct speech, but they should not be guaranteed equal outcomes — which with the BCRA actually means unequal outcomes.
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News

Worst President in History Defends President Who Will be Even Worse
 
"Can we really have an African-American president in this country when the constitutional body, the press rolls over and plays dead, becoming propagandists and stenographers -- and then calls anyone who disagrees with that president a racist?"

Lying Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives Ban Truth-Telling in the Chamber
Joe Wilson gets smacked for truthfully saying Obama was lying.

Cosby and Cummings on Rush and the Absurd Charges of Racism
Rush opposes Obama for the same reasons he opposed Jimmy Carter. Yet somehow, when he criticizes Obama, they say Rush is racist. Was Hillary racist when she criticized Obama, too?

 



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Specter Makes His Final Betrayal Official; Update: Obama Coos Over Specter, Big Labor

By Michelle Malkin  •  September 15, 2009 01:17 PM

I laid out Arlen Specter’s coming betrayal on card-check in May.

Today, Benedict Arlen just made it official

Card check = massively boosting union rolls = massively boosting Democrat voter rolls = permanent GOP minority.

You’re a real patriot, Sen. Specter.

***

Update: President Obama is speaking at the AFL-CIO. According to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Salena Zito, Obama singled out Specter for praise and cooed: “The White House is pretty nice, but there’s nothing like being back in the House of Labor.” (It’s a duplex.) He then claimed that when organized labor succeeds, America succeeds.

Tell that to the Boeing workers who just decertified their union.


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Czarist Washington

It’s time for the Senate to review Obama’s czars

So what do these czars do? Do they advise the president? Or do they impose the administration's agenda on the heads of federal agencies and offices who have been vetted and confirmed by the Senate? Unfortunately -- and in direct contravention of the Framers' intentions -- virtually no one can say with certainty what these individuals do or what limits are placed on their authority. We don't know if they are influencing or implementing policy. We don't know if they possess philosophical views or political affiliations that are inappropriate or overreaching in the context of their work.

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