Donald Sensing penned an interesting blog post the other day. He doesn’t believe another Republican will ever be President. In the post he pointed to a court ruling meant about nothing to the Obama regime. An appeals court ruled that Barack Obama was violating the law regarding the closure of a nuclear waste dump site.
In a rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department’s application for a never-completed waste storage site at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain.
In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was “simply flouting the law” when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation’s nuclear waste repository.
And they made a poignant statement
“It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The commission is simply defying a law enacted by Congress … without any legal basis.”
(emphasis added)
Obama shrugged his shoulders.
As per the commander-in-chief, the NRC has declined to conduct the statutorily mandated Yucca Mountain licensing process. This essentially destroys the project, which the U.S. government has been working on since the early 1980s to be the nation’s sole repository for high-level nuclear waste. In 2010, the NRC, then led by Obama appointee Gregory Jaczko, ordered the licensing process terminated.
It is the tip of the iceberg.
The IRS targeting of conservative groups? Sure it happened, but so what? We’re not stopping.:
In a remarkable admission that is likely to rock the Internal Revenue Service again, testimony released Thursday by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp reveals that an agent involved in reviewing tax exempt applications from conservative groups told a committee investigator that the agency is still targeting Tea Party groups, three months after the IRS scandal erupted.
In closed door testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee, the unidentified IRS agent said requests for special tax status from Tea Party groups is being forced into a special “secondary screening” because the agency has yet to come up with new guidance on how to judge the tax status of the groups.
The NSA was guilty of thousands of privacy violations. The regime response? Duck oversight.
It would be easy to read too much into the report. Many of those incidents can be chalked up to carelessness. For instance, a programming error mixed up the 202 area code (Washington, D.C.) with the Egyptian international code and the agency ended up collecting a “large number” of domestic call records.
But other violations — small in number but significant in form — go to the heart of what is so disturbing about the agency’s vacuum cleaner approach to surveillance: It’s too easily abused. One program swept up both foreign and U.S. e-mails for months before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled the practice unconstitutional and shut it down.
Still, it’s not even these “mistakes,” as the NSA called them Friday, that are most disturbing. (Though it’s worth asking whether an agency with such access to Americans’ private communications can afford to make thousands of mistakes.)
More bothersome is the hint in the latest disclosures that NSA is trying to hide its excesses from overseers.
Obama’s NLRB appointments were found unconstitutional. He thumbs his nose at the Court.
Following Friday morning’s appeals court ruling that Barack Obama’s “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional, union attorney (and current NLRB chairman) Mark Gaston Pearce vowed to ignore the court’s ruling.
In a statement posted on the NLRB’s website, Pearce stated:
“The Board respectfully disagrees with today’s decision and believes that the President’s position in the matter will ultimately be upheld. It should be noted that this order applies to only one specific case, Noel Canning, and that similar questions have been raised in more than a dozen cases pending in other courts of appeals.
In the meantime, the Board has important work to do. The parties who come to us seek and expect careful consideration and resolution of their cases, and for that reason, we will continue to perform our statutory duties and issue decisions.”
“The parties who come to us seek and expect careful consideration and resolution of their cases…”
Wait. What?!?
Obama is raising taxes without Congress and is spending the proceeds as he see fit:
If you like your ridiculously high cell phone bill, there’s good news: President Obama wants to make it even higher! The president is pushing a plan to raise money by hiking cell phone fees and use the revenue generated to wire up local schools with high-speed Internet access. The idea of allowing states and towns to figure out how to pay for their own Internet access is evidently anathema to this administration, as is the idea that government should stay within its constitutional boundaries.
He’s also planning to do this without input from Congress, via the Federal Communications Commission, according to the Washington Post. Congress, not the executive branch, is empowered by the Constitution with the ability to levy or reject taxes.
By circumventing Congress, the president would also avoid hearings, debate, and give and take — what we used to call the legislative process. Now it’s just the government and its functionaries blackmailing the citizenry.
Obama reveals the existence of sealed indictments if he is of a mind to do so.
The DNC collects information on you from your neighbors:
Of course that is desperation on the Democrats’ part. Trying to deflect attention from the White House invading people’s privacy, the Democratic National Committee is making real news by admitting flag@whitehouse.gov was used to collect data on people being turned in by third parties.
And the response from Congress?
As the lawless scandals are exposed — Benghazi, gunrunning in Mexico, misuse of the NSA, the IRS crippling the opposition in 2012 by illegal denials of tax exemptions — the president and his allies have been fast and furious in ginning up his base by playing the race card so often it’s worn to a mere stub.
Still, to the outrage of many the media and his followers insist we must treat him as if he were a sacred cow.
President Obama’s increasingly grandiose claims for presidential power are inversely proportional to his shriveling presidency. Desperation fuels arrogance as, barely 200 days into the 1,462 days of his second term, his pantry of excuses for failure is bare, his domestic agenda is nonexistent and his foreign policy of empty rhetorical deadlines and red lines is floundering. And at last week’s news conference he offered inconvenience as a justification for illegality.
Explaining his decision to unilaterally rewrite the Affordable Care Act (ACA), he said: “I didn’t simply choose to” ignore the statutory requirement for beginning in 2014 the employer mandate to provide employees with health care. No, “this was in consultation with businesses.”
He continued: “In a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up the speaker and say, you know what, this is a tweak that doesn’t go to the essence of the law. . . . It looks like there may be some better ways to do this, let’s make a technical change to the law. That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do. But we’re not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to Obamacare. We did have the executive authority to do so, and we did so.”
Serving as props in the scripted charade of White House news conferences, journalists did not ask the pertinent question: “Where does the Constitution confer upon presidents the ‘executive authority’ to ignore the separation of powers by revising laws?” The question could have elicited an Obama rarity: brevity. Because there is no such authority.
Granted, any president may decline to enforce statutes he believes are unconstitutional. But Obama is making no such claim here. Basically, he is admitting that parts of law are impossible to enforce on the deadlines imposed by Congress — deadlines he signed into law. He’s also admitting he doesn’t want to have Congress make these changes, for fear that if lawmakers get their mitts on this unpopular program, they would at least debate far more extensive changes than he’d like.
Congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, may agree with the numerous delays, changes and special favors. But the president invites chaos when he picks which parts of Obamacare to enforce, and which, in retrospect, he has decided are unworkable or unwise.
In a recent news conference, Obama acknowledged that congressional modification of the law is preferable to these White House fiats: “In a normal political environment, it would have been easier for me to simply call up (House Speaker John Boehner) and say, ‘You know what? This is a tweak that doesn’t go to the essence of the law. … Let’s make a technical change of the law.’ That would be the normal thing that I would prefer to do, but we’re not in a normal atmosphere around here when it comes to, quote-unquote, ‘Obamacare.”’
Tweaks? Obama isn’t making tweaks. He’s trying to circumvent major flaws that began flaring when the law was enacted. Hence the many carve-outs, delays and special deals that have been piling up since he added his signature to Obamacare on March 23, 2010.
Obamacare doesn’t work. But back to Sensing:
The goal of the entire Democrat party is to be the permanent, sole political authority in the country. This is the actual transformation that Barack Obama promised to great applause in his 2008 campaign. And we are getting transformed good and hard:
[I]nstead of the new birth of hope and change, it is the transformation of a constitutional republic operating under laws passed by democratically accountable legislators into a servile nation under the management of an unaccountable administrative state. The real import of Barack Obama’s political career will be felt long after he leaves office, in the form of a permanently expanded state that is more assertive of its own interests and more ruthless in punishing its enemies. At times, he has advanced this project abetted by congressional Democrats, as with the health-care law’s investiture of extraordinary powers in the executive bureaucracy, but he also has advanced it without legislative assistance — and, more troubling still, in plain violation of the law. President Obama and his admirers choose to call this “pragmatism,” but what it is is a mild expression of totalitarianism, under which the interests of the country are conflated with those of the president’s administration and his party. Barack Obama is the first president of the democracy that John Adams warned us about.
Obama can do this not because the Constitution or law authorize it. Most definitely they actually prohibit it. He is getting away with it because there is no one who can stop him and almost no one who wants to stop him. No one, and I mean absolutely no one, in the Democrat party is in the slightest interested in reining in Obama’s expansion of executive diktat because they know what few of the rest of us are awakening to: the Democrats are never going to lose that executive authority again. Let me be clear, with a promise to elucidate another day: there is never going to be another Republican president. Ever.
The media will not examine Obama’s imperialist manner because they do not want to. They agree with it. The courts are literally unable to enforce their rulings contra this administration; Obama ignores them at will and without consequence. The Republicans are dominated by the Political Class and lack the numbers, influence, collective will and ideological conviction to rein in the administration even if they had the ability to do so, which they don’t.
I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that Obama had been monitoring all GOP communications.
And one wonders what would happen if Obama evoked Executive Authority (after all, it’s not a “normal political environment”) and decided not to leave office. Courts mean nothing, the Senate wouldn’t mind and the House is full of spineless GOP cowards. If you search for the definition of the word “obsequious” you’ll find “See: White House Press Corps”
Who’d force him out? Besides, that’d be racist.
What would tyranny look like in America? Look around.
Will no one stop him?
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
You didn’t include blackmailing the GM Bond holders.
WHO HAS THE GUT TO CHANGE ALL THAT,
EGYPT DID IT,
ARE YOU GOING TO BE INFERIOR TO EGYPT
BECAUSE OF A LACK OF GUTS?
@ilovebeeswarzone: Bees the Canuck Calling for an insurrection against an American President from her basement far to the North. If you weren’t such a sad joke one might take note of your call to violence against an elected POTUS. Do you know the potential penalty for such foolishness?
Will no one stop the hyperbole?
tyr·an·ny (ˈtirənē/) Noun:
(1) Cruel and oppressive government or rule.
(2) A nation under such cruel and oppressive government.
Anyone thinking that definition applies to the United States needs to get some perspective. Try visiting any of the following:
North Korea
Syria
Tibet
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Equatorial Guinea
Libya
Myanmar
China
Cuba
Laos
Belarus
If you don’t like making comparisons with the worst, try it from the opposite end: Name one nation where you have more personal freedom than you currently have in the United States. Don’t feel like you’re limited to the 21st Century. Pick any other nation, at any time in history.
Richard Wheeler,
read again my comment,
like OBAMA CALL FOR A CHANGE,
did you tell him that AMERICA IS NOT FOR CHANGE,
SO i did ask for changing the malaise of the people,
your take is what you interpreted,
what ever you think many ask for change, I REPEAT THEIR WISH,
Did anyone bother to read the Kavanaugh ruling INRE Yucca Mountain? I about fell over in my chair here in hysterics.
Let’s see.. the beef is the license application is being ignored via federal statutes. Oh yes.. all this started under Reagan in 1983, but the application didn’t get submitted to the NRC for the depository’s approval until 2008. Woof… did all this take long enough?? But I digress.
The NRC is an independent agency that oversees civilian use of nuclear energy, nuclear medicine and nuclear safety. It’s headed up by five commissioners, appointed by the POTUS for five year terms, after Senate confirmation.
The NRC used to be part of the AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) in the good ol’ days. When that merged with the ERDA (Energy Research and Development Agency) in the mid 70s, the NRC then became the independent oversight agency it is today.
But wait.. this gets more interesting…
So the lawsuit is all about the NRC *not* processing the application within the 3 year time frame designated by federal law passed 30 years ago. Okay… so who’s the entity applying for the license?
Lo, behold… it’s the Department of Energy. Wait? Isn’t that part of the Executive Branch, and not an independent agency?
So the first question to be asked, is Obama doin’ the screwin’ as the NRC.. or is Obama getting screwed as the DOE? Kinda gives that off color saying, “go ‘eff yourself” new meaning, eh? Oh yeah, and when you do, it’s *all your fault* when you get (or not) pregnant! :0)
Well, it seems the title of the post’s question is answered. Yes, someone is “stopping the tyrant”…. the “tyrant” himself.
But wait… why isn’t anyone pushing thru the license process? Ventriloquist Obama using the NRC dummy says that Congress doesn’t want the process to go on. So when the courts addressed this in 2011 and 2012, they issued delays because they were expecting Congress to straighten all this out with some sort of clarifying legislation and adequate funding for the licensing process.
Yeah… pass the popcorn. Apparently that hasn’t happened. Surprise surprise.
So Judge Kavanaugh then follows with lectures about the Oval Office responsibilities, Congressional partial fundings to get the process started, and how even an independent agency falls under the POTUS responsibility….yada yada. And here I am scratching my head. But but but… it’s the Obama DOE, getting denied by Obama NRC, who says Congress won’t deal with it legislatively or within budgetary bills to straight out the clusterf*#K.
Does anyone *truly* wonder why nothing works anymore? This government behemoth is such a wide lard that it can’t see it’s own ass anymore.
I dunno, drj. Frankly, I find the entire idea that it’s Obama fault that he’s screwing himself over, and “flouting the law” in order to do so, just downright hilarious. And I guess no one wants to corner Harry Reid on this comedic farce? On wait… He’s one of the ones cutting the funding for the process to $29 mil, not providing the $56 mil Obama asked for.
Thanks for the guffaw.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security
We have seen this movie before
We know how it ends
I don’t expect mr Obama to leave the White House at the end of his term. I expect there to be an emergency that keeps him longer.
Thomas Jefferson
thank you for coming, it was in great need to remind THE PEOPLE OF THEIR DUTY,
THEY NEED A REMINDER QUITE OFTEN, BECAUSE MANY ARE MISINFORMED,
BY AN NEFARIOUS INDOCTRINATION,WHICH NOW IS OBVIOUS, SHOWN IN THEIR BELIEFS
OR HAVE SHUT THEIR MIND TO THE MOST PRESTIGIOUS LAW OF THE WORLD,
WHICH IS BEING MOCK BY LEADER ELECTED FOR WHAT THEY HAVE PROMISES,
BUT FAKE THEIR WORDS AND LIED, TO LISTEN TO OTHER COMMUNIST MARXIST LAW COMING FROM FOREIGNERS HATERS ,OF THIS AMERICA WHO GAVE SO MUCH BLOOD AND MONEY TO ALL THOSE ENVIOUS PEOPLE who wish wrong and destruction , TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOME ARE HERE AND WANT REVENGE FOR HAVING SUFFER IN THE HISTORY,
WHILE THIS USA SAVE THEM FROM A WORSE LIFE ABROAD,
THEY FORGOT IT,
STRANGE THEY FORGOT THE GOOD DONE TO THEM BUT STILL CARRY THE HATE THEY BROUGHT WITH THEM CENTURY AGO,
WHILE OTHER ARRIVED HERE WITH A DESTRUCTIVE MINDSET TO BRING
TO AMERICA which is only pain and slavery for THE PEOPLE,
@Thomas Jefferson:
The left said the same thing about George W. Bush, and the right said the same thing about Bill Clinton. And yet, here we are.
Aqua
yes but PRESIDENT BUSH was ON THE SIDE OF AMERICA AND
RESPECTED THE LAWS OF THE LAND,
@Greg: Will no one on the left answer very clear and rational question?
The article suggests that Obama’s actions will lead to tyranny, much like the Bush detractors did from . . . oh they’re still doing it. Every act of executive power act of Bush’s was exaggerated, and every act by Obama is being downplayed or ignored. Which do you think has the real potential for tyranny? The one getting away with it.
Rather cut and dry, and I haven’t heard any good argument to discount what DrJohn wrote above. There is a real concern that needs to be addressed about whether our governmental mechanics are breaking down, and where that leads.
A comparison to the aforementioned regimes is a smoke screen — not relevant to the discussion at hand.
@Richard Wheeler:
Gee, Richard, a little over the top, don’t you think? Or do you just have some blatant bigotry against Canadians, deeming them to not be as special as you are as a Californian? Perhaps you think that the free speech offered here in FA, an American blog, ends at our borders?
Call for violence against an elected POTUS? REALLY? Perhaps you are unfamiliar with a thing called a “legal” insurrection? Or maybe you think that “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another” are just so many words that no longer hold any meaning for you, and the rest of your progressive ilk?
You read into Bee’s entry what you wanted to read into it. And came back with a more than insulting retort. That speaks to your “content of character,” not Bees. If you have anything to say to Bees that is so insulting, perhaps you can do it in her native language, French, and spare the rest of us your verbal trash.
we can calculate his loyal troops,
the welfare beneficiary still as poor as when he took office, nothing he did change their lives and their minds are more screwed up by the indoctrination given to them and their children that he OBAMA,
is the supreme benefactor on their lives, don’t we know that is the working class who are struggling to give them their monthly checks,, we know that but the indoctrination did not mentioned it,
next the ILLEGALS GIVEN OPEN DOOR AND AMNESTY,
NO MATTER IF THEY HAD COMMIT CRIMES IN THEIR COUNTRY, HERE’S ANOTHER BRANCH OF HIS TROOPS, HE CAN DEPEND ON,
NEXT ARE THE BLACKS, THE ONES WHO BELIEVE the DEMOCRATS SHARPTON AND OTHER PROPAGANDA KEEPING THEM LOCK IN THEIR CLAWS, EVEN THAT NOTHING HAVE BEEN MADE TO UPSCALE THEIR YOUNGSTER AND TAKE THEM OUT OF THE STREETS AND CRIMES WHICH KILL THEM MORE THAN EVER,
THAT IS BESIDE THE MANY ELECTED WHICH MAKE GOOD MONEY JUST TO SILENTLY FOLLOW THE LEADER, AND SAME AS THE THEY ARE UNIONIZE LIKE THE DEPENDENT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES ALSO FOLLOWING THE LEADER IF THEY WANT TO KEEP THEIR JOBS,
SO WHERE THE OUTSIDER FIT IN ? THEY DON’T AND ARE LEFT TO JUST EXPOSE THE CORRUPT WITH WORDS BUT NO ACTION S TO FIX IT,
THAT IS THE DRAMATIC SITUATION,OF IT ALL,
retire05
yes but I DID NOT WISH TO MAKE AN ARGUMENT ,
he is not worth my anger, I found his answer to TRISHA MARIE to be a sneaky question and
I did cut him off before she came, and I was waiting for one of those dirty comments,
he is very predictable and still a snake,
thank you for the help,
@Aqua:
Clinton actually had moments of bipartisanship. Bush would have been impeached immediately had he decided to stay, but he actually respected the Constitution.
Obama sees the Constitution as an impediment. Violating the law only means something when someone does something about it.
@DrJohn:
Except for the Fourth Amendment.
@ilovebeeswarzone, in the US, we don’t change our government with violent protests and using the US military to removed elected leaders. We don’t consider that “legal insurrection” and prefer to use the ballot box to civil wars these days. You might want to consider the US “inferior” to Egypt, and not having “guts” to resort to violence. I don’t.
We can remove a POTUS both at the ballot box, or via a Congressional impeachment. Our largest problem is fixing a corrupt and self-fixated Congress, who do not do their jobs, and function without term limits. It seems that the majority of politicians offered up to us as a choice are long on promises, and short on actual performance.
However emulating Egyptians, rioting in the streets and calling on the military, isn’t our way… I would hope. No sense in throwing out the baby with the bath water. Nothing wrong with our founding structure. Just those who do not operate within the limits of that structure. Unfortunately, that flaw is not limited only to the Oval Office.
The notion of an EO 3rd term is just conspiratorial hyperbole. I see little indication that either Obama, or MO, even desires to stay. In fact MO mentioned that much of the stress of WH life daily was relieved without any future campaign looming, making being a 2nd term First Family far more pleasant. They will have a lucrative and opulent life after the WH, and with far less stress. And I’m sure that they – like many other prior admins – are looking forward to returning to a life without the weight of the office.
@MataHarley: Well said. For anyone to suggest we should emulate the cluster fuck that is Egypt. Nuts
To suggest that BHO might try to stay beyond his 8 years. Absurd
@Thomas Jefferson, #7:
The movie ends with the same orderly transfer of Executive Branch power that it always ends with. There’s been absolutely no indication that anyone in the Obama administration intends or even wishes otherwise. Like George W. Bush, Obama will probably breathe a sigh of relief.
@Nathan Blue, #11:
Will no one stop the tyrant? isn’t a rational question. It’s a ridiculous assertion followed by a question mark.
The United States isn’t a tyranny and Obama isn’t a tyrant. He’s the current democratically elected President of a democratic republic. In slightly over 3 years the voters of the nation will choose someone else for the position.
@DrJohn:
Our Constitution? Have you read Cato’s take on Bush and the Constitution.
http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/power-surge-constitutional-record-george-w-bush
You know Bush signed McCain -Feingold. The same law the SCOTUS slapped down and then received a scolding from Obama at the SotU address.
No child left behind was a massive expansion of the Department of Education and a slap in the face to the 10th Amendment.
Then there was TARP and the Auto Bailouts. And as Ditto mentioned above, massive disregard of the 4th Amendment.
Bush was no friend of the Constitution.
@Greg: And his actions are concerning. You’re accusing others of hyperbole, but throwing it around yourself as it serves your cause.
Anyone, regardless of political view, has a right and duty to question what their leaders are doing — even if they voted for them. This isn’t a football game – it’s a republic governed by the people. If you didn’t read Thomas Jeff’s post thoroughly, I suggest you do.
Here, I’ll help with a choice portion:
This article is about prudence. It is not wise, or fair, to dismiss the concerns of your fellow citizens by parsing words and defining their issues in your own biased way. Some of us are not on Team Obama, and you are. Get over it.
Go and have your opinions, and leave others to theirs. Your biased berating on this blog isn’t serving to “offer the other side of the argument,” it’s just distracting noise. We’re all well aware that Obama-supporters think Obama is just another democratically elected President and any criticism of him must be rhetorically waved away regardless of any points made.
Some of us are concerned with demagoguery, Billion-dollar-campaigns (Obama started it), and poor/minority exploitation of votes using mathematical models to ensure victory, rather than good old leadership and honesty. All of the concerns about Obama are valid, and people are free to have them.
If you disagree, that’s fine. But spare us the usual Team Obama fanfare. We get that on a daily basis in the way of most media and entertainment available.
MataHarley
if it would be needed to remove a WHITE HOUSE,
YES THIS USA is not the MUSLIM EGYPT,
NOTHING OF THAT SCALE WOULD BE HAPENNING OF COURSE,
YOU CANNOT COMPARE THE MINDSET BETWEEN THE TWO,
unless once a day happen that the MUSLIMS DECIDE THEY ARE THEN STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE ON THE USA, I HEAR THEY ARE 7 MILLIONS HERE, YOU KNOW THEIR WISH TO CONQUER THE WORLD AND MAKE THE NON BELIEVER SLAVES OR CORPSE, AND THEY ALREADY ARE IN THE WHITE HOUSE, AND WEARING THE MUSLIM RING,
GIVE IT JUST A FEW MORE YEARS MULTIPLY BY 6 CHILDREN EACH FAMILY,
AND YOU MIGHT SEE ANOTHER OBAMA BACK ON TOP, CARRIED BY THEM,
WE CANNOT BE SO CONFIDENT OF THE FUTURE AND SIT AND DO NOTHING BUT LET IT HAPPEN,
REMEMBER YOUR COMMENT: THEY CAME AND I DID NOT SAY ANYTHING,
AND AT THE END THERE WAS NOBODY TO SPEAK FOR ME,
I NEVER FORGOT THAT ONE,
LOOK AT NOW, IT WAS NOT WHAT IT’S IS SUPPOSE TO BE,
AT THE 2008 FRENZY,
@Richard Wheeler:
Been there. Done that. The year was 1776. And again in 1861.
I don’t see where Bees advocated a violent insurrection emulating the Egyptians. I think she was actually referring to the Egyptians removal of a tyrannical dictator, be it Mubarak or Morsi. Perhaps you lost something in the translation.
@retire05: “verbal trash” Talk about kettle/black o5.
The Declaration called for the dissolution of the political bands that connected us to the British Monarchy. It certainly didn’t suggest the forceful overthrow of a Democratically elected Presidency as I believed Bees suggested in her Egyptian ref.
Bees You say that was not what you meant. O.K.
@retire05: Did Bees ever suggest Mubarek should be removed? I believe she supported him.
1861? pls elaborate on relevance of Civil War er War Between The States.
@Nathan Blue, #21:
I don’t care for the tone of the question. It’s a little too reminiscent of a well-known quote attributed to Henry II.
@Richard Wheeler:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and institute new Government”
The DoI was clear; with ANY form of government that becomes destructive of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the people have the RIGHT to alter, or abolish that form of government.
First you say that “Bees suggested in her Egyptian ref.” the forceful overthrow of a Democratically elected Presidency then you say OK when she explains that is not what she meant. So which is it?
@Richard Wheeler:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and institute new Government”
And it was not a “civil” war, nor was it a war between states. Louisiana did not declare war on New York. It was a war of Northern aggression attempting to prevent the withdrawal of certain states from the Union.
Richard Wheeler
I did support MUBARAK, I don’t remember if I mentioned it on a comment,
and why? because he was an ally of the FREE WORLD,
AND HE COULD CONTAINED, HIS MUSLIMS CITIZENS TO LIVE IN PEACE,
AND WAS NOT AFRAID TO PUT THE VIOLENT IN PRISON,
@retire05: I “believed” that is what she meant. I now accept her clarification. How bout answering my #25. War of Northern Aggression–Right lol
@Richard Wheeler:
Then perhaps you should apologize to “Bees the Canuck” for calling her a “sad joke” because you went off half cocked like a cheap pistol. (Not that I think you are gentleman enough to apologize)
Just because you didn’t like the answer, doesn’t mean I didn’t give one.
Oh, that’s right; I forgot how Jefferson Davis sent his troops into a Northern state to lob the first volley. Remind me again what state that was.
retir05
NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND ATTACK THE SOUTHERN POTOMAC ARMY IN
SHARPBURG MARYLAND,
the MARYLAND CAMPAIGN
BYE
@retire05: C’mon Miss PC Congeniality. Calling Bees a Canuck is like calling me a Yankee—ask the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL. Now if I called you a redneck bumpkin—which as an Officer and a Gentleman, by Act of Congress, I certainly would never do—then you would have legitimate redress against me.
Semper Fi
retire05
the two COMMANDING GENERALS of the MARYLAND CAMPAIGN ,
ARE GEORGE B. McCLELLAND AND ROBERT E. LEE.
BYE
@retire05, #31:
Surely you remember which side fired the first shot. Rebel forces bombarded U.S. military troops stationed at Ft. Sumter in the harbor near Charleston, SC, when they refused to surrender.
@Greg:
When did South Carolina become “
?”
@retire05:
Fascinating. Retire05 apparently believes it’s perfectly fine to take up arms against active duty United States military personnel as long as it happens below the Mason Dixon line. Nidal Malik Hasan will be thrilled.
@retire05:
I agree that the term Civil War is not accurate when referring to what happened between 1861-1865 because there wasn’t a fight for control of the central government. However, The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a Southern heritage group, refers to the war as “The War Between the States”. I’ve yet to be able to find a copy of Senate Joint Resolution 41 from 1928 to confirm that it even exists or if it does that it states what this group claims it does. Even if it doesn’t exist or doesn’t support what this group claims it does, there is at least one southern heritage group that does in fact refer to the war as such. Obviously this group is “pro” Confederate. The name is also supposedly on the Marine Corps War Memorial.
http://barnardebeecamp.com/WBTS_Congress_Resolution.html
In 1880, Congress had the War Department compile the war records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies. It’s called “The Official Records of the War of Rebellion”.
What type of war happened between 1861-1865 is still open to debate. Its definition depends on an individual’s view of the war. Trying to find a “neutral” term that didn’t offend Northerners or Southerners was allegedly what was behind Senate Joint Resolution 41 in 1928.
@Greg: That quite a stretch.
If anything, the posting is about preventing a Henry II/ Thomas Becket kind of tyrant-directed murder rather than promoting it.
Really grasping at straws on this one.
@Tom:
You’re an idiot.
@retire05:
And you’re someone who fantasies about treason, and clearly pines for the establishment of a racist, retrograde, Southern theocracy. We all know you despise America, the actual America that exists today. It’s nice to see you finally owning up to it.
@Tom:
As I said before, you’re an idiot.
As well as being a confirmed jerk.
No dog in this fight as this truly is an example of irrelevant semantics. But if you want to take the common useage of “civil war” in definition, it is an armed fight between citizens of the same country to solve a dispute. That fits for our “whatever you want to call it” Civil War.
Legal definitions? Via the Free Dictionary legal terms:
US Legal breaks it down more:
Via Duhaine Org, which is like an “exchange” of legal definitions:
Now if you want to focus emphasis on “civil”, that can be taken a few ways. And I doubt that “civil” in social attitude or performance of social amenities enters in to any definition when it comes to war, so that brings it down to a description of territory – i.e. natural vs foreign.
I guess it’s all a rose by any other name, eh? All I can say is that if the “Civil War Enactment” organizations had to change their name to “The War of Northern aggression attempting to prevent Secession Enactment”, there would be a lot of dazed and ‘fused people, and wasted ink. American History books and artifacts that would have to go thru administrative hell for virtually no good reason.
I think most people realize that when citizens of the same country take up arms against each other to settle a dispute over governance, it’s a “civil war” by just about any one’s definition, no matter what the quest or outcome.
INRE the American whatever-PC-name-you-want-to-call-it war, I agree that most people don’t realize that trade, tariffs and finances were the primary factor, with slavery the secondary PC calling card to rally participation and support. The goal of the succession states wasn’t to take over the existing “United States”, but to create another “United States-The Sequel”. However, no matter how you slice that tomato, it was still citizens of the same existing country, taking up arms to fight other citizens of the same country.
But I’ll agree that official records coming up with a more gentle “War of Rebellion” (damned easier than War of Northern.. yada yada… on titles) was a way of not doing a na na nana naaaaah at the loser.
@MataHarley: I couldn’t highlight the part of your post I wanted to because it’s in red for some reason. I agree that the definition is semantics. It depends on whether or not you consider the Southern states to have still been part of the U.S. after they seceded. While they didn’t have international recognition, they did have their own separate central government and constitution (amongst other things) independent of Washington and at the war’s conclusion they were “admitted” back into the Union. Comparing our “Civil War” to other civil wars such as the English Civil War, the Russian Civil War, and the Spanish Civil War, ours doesn’t fit.
As for Luttwak’s definition, there were two armies and navies, not elements of one army and one navy, fighting each other. For example, Lee wasn’t in the national armed forces at the outbreak of the war. The Army tried to get him to lead the Union Army and he declined. Given the small size of the federal/national Army at the time (most of whom were on the frontier to guard against Indian attacks), most of those who fought either joined the Union Army or the Confederate Army not the national armed forces, i.e. American Army.
As for Slynn’s definition, the South wasn’t fighting to gain power but independence. The Southern leadership clearly stated that was their goal for fighting the war. Going further down the food chain, Civil War historian James McPherson researched the reasons why the common soldier on both sides fought. In the North it was to bring the Union back together. In the South it was for independence. Kind of dispels the theory that slavery was the primary factor for those fighting which is something we both agree on.
Again, I think this all boils down to whether or not one considers the Northern and Southern states to have been one country or two during the time period in question.
BTW, I should be finishing up Robison in the next day or two. He makes very compelling arguments backed by FACTS and EVIDENCE. Gotta love it.
@another vet:
I’m curious why anyone would think these were “two countries” waging this conflict. Can you share your Constitutional reasoning, please?
It’s impossible to downplay slavery as a factor. It informs all of the other major reasons, such as states’ rights, to such an extent as to render the arguments largely redundant. The economic reasons given by the southern states are based upon economies built upon slavery. The right the slave states cherishes most was the continuance and expansion of slavery, and their greatest fear was the uncertainty of the slave vs. free state balance moving forward and the potential for an eventual Constitutional amendment banning slavery. The Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, The Kansas-Nebraska Act – these can all be spun as resulting from a fundamental disagreement regarding states’ rights, but the issue of slavery underlies each crisis and temporary resolution. As for cultural differences, foremost for the small, elite power structure in the South would be the impossibility of imagining a life, or continued domination of the Southern economy and wealth, without slavery.
@another vet, I have to echo @Tom on why anyone would consider that the states were not united at the time of the whatever-PC-name-floats-your-boat war? How do you get to that? Altho I will say that the ensuing decision of secession not being constitutional does annoy me.
@Tom, it’s not a matter of “downplaying” slavery. Rather that the primary reasons were economic and tarifs for the need to continue the uniting of the states. However the populus has a problem grasping reasons other than dry economics too often when it comes to waging war. The same thing can be noted that in order to rally support for Iraq, they had to ignore the other “whereas” reasons in the AUMF, and go to both the public and the UN with the WMD argument as a central, primary point.
Inconvenient facts on Lincoln and slavery is that he was not as much for emancipation as he was for not increasing the slavery trade. Slavery became, for Lincoln, more of an issue of convenience for a larger agenda than a central issue… much as WMD did for Dubya. Fact is, Lincoln was not as passionate as history portrays. In the end, the primary factor was economics, with the more passionate issue of slavery as the catalyst.
@Tom: I’m not saying slavery had nothing to do with the war. The main issue however was state’s rights. State’s rights rank above slavery not the other way around. For example, in 1832 this country almost went to war when South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union over a cotton tariff. It was called the Nullification Crisis of 1832 and is viewed by some historians as a sort of a prelude as to what happened in 1861 because it almost brought the country to war. Lincoln in part based his response to the South on Jackson’s response to the South in 1832 (as a matter of fact, part of Jackson’s response lead to the Trail of Tears but that is a whole other topic). The issue was state’s rights with the tariff being the main point of contention just as slavery was the main point of contention concerning state’s rights in 1861. If you read up on that part of American history and see the arguments made by both sides, it was all about state’s rights that was triggered over a dispute about a tariff that favored the Northern economy at the expense of the Southern economy. John Calhoun was the chief spokesman for the South and coined the phrase, “the tyranny of the majority” decades before John Stuart Mill did.
If you read what the leaders of both sides stated their reasons for the war were, in the North it was to preserve the Union and in the South it was independence. There were people on both sides, the Abolitionists in the North and the large plantation owners in the South, who viewed slavery as the main cause for the war but they are a minority. Only a very small number of Southerners owned slaves. It is well known that Lincoln stated his main goal was to preserve the Union even if meant allowing the South to keep its slaves. Prior to issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, he told the South they could keep their slaves if they returned to the Union. Does that sound like Lincoln went to war to preserve the Union or to end slavery? The main point of contention, as was Jackson’s, was the extent of state’s rights versus rights of the central government and did the states have the right to secede. And you do know that the South began emancipating its slaves in 1865? They did it out of military necessity which is the reason Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. Both sides realized the need for the additional manpower in order to achieve victory. For obvious reasons, the North beat the South to the punch.
Check on some good books on that period and you’ll find out that most Northerners had no use for blacks and in some cases treated them worse than they were in the South. That’s not historical revisionism either. Blacks were viewed as an inferior race on both sides. Research Lincoln’s views. He deplored slavery but didn’t believe blacks were on the same level as whites.
@MataHarley:
I’m not sure exactly what time you are referring to. The South had its own constitution, its own central government, its own military, its own currency, its own borders, its own capital, its own trade relations, its own laws, and its own foreign policy if you want to call it that. It seems they were quite independent of Washington at the time of the war. That doesn’t sound like a united country to me. If the sates were united, there wouldn’t have been a need to fight a war to bring them back together again which was Lincoln’s main reason for fighting the war. If they weren’t regarded as having left the Union, why did they have to be readmitted?
Don’t care about “their own” stuff listed above, AV. What I do care about is when each southern state, involved in the war-we-cannot-name-because-tiresome-is-PC sensitive-about-the-definition-of-“civil war” petitioned, and was admitted, for statehood in the United States. Would you agree that when a state “joins a union”, that they are part of the same country, despite what other levels of lower government they choose to have? After all, they had representatives in Congress which were “restored/re’admitted” post war.
As of the shall-not-be-named-war, all of the southern states involved had joined the union, save the later created “West Virginia”.
It’s really simple. If they were not part of the Union, how can they petition or go to war in order to secede from a “union” they are not part of? And post war, how can they be re’admitted to something that, in theory, you posit they were never part of to begin with?
No part of the Constitution declares terms, that a state that joins the United States, can never change it’s mind and secede for what they consider just cause.
The founders understood the risk that the government they were creating could devolve into a tyrannical democracy, (which most of them abhorred as the greatest risk to liberty, as the leadership of a democracy will eventually strive to increase it’s power and control over it’s citizens until they lose all freedom and become ,) being worse than a monarchy.
One of the greatest of all writers about our American government, and the dangers it faced, was the French writer and historian, Alexis de Tocqueville.
The last paragraph in that excerpt from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, is a mirror to the current relationship between The People of these United States and the engorged behemoth our government has become.