Let’s Play, Pirates!

Evil can not be defeated with acquiescence. Evil must be confronted and defeated. To defeat these pirates, we do not have to go and “nation build” in Somalia. We need to defend our ships, sink any pirate ships that threaten us, and kill all pirates involved. The remaining pirates will get the message that if they screw with us, they die. Piracy of American ships stops. We’ve done it before, but I don’t think we have the guts to do it again.

Let’s Play, Pirates

by Ted Nugent (more by this author)
Posted 04/14/2009 ET

Ah, the open sea. An adventurous captain’s dream, we sail the vast oceans of the world. I’ve got this big old scow, sailing from port to port, loading up with merchandise, goods and raw materials to deliver to buyers from sellers around the globe.

Been doing it for time immemorial. Pretty simple, logical procedure really. No rocket science here. I simply pay attention, think and do the right thing. A responsible professional must never let his guard down and will always be prepared. Captain Nuge, reporting for duty. The last Boy Scout lives.

My ship is always maintained in tip-top shape for the grueling conditions that Mother Nature hits us with constantly. Fresh paint every other year or so, and I must keep my engines purring, rudder strong, propeller sturdy and straight and anchors and chains ready to do their jobs. Lifeboats and floatation gear for all on board are checked and double checked regularly.

My crew is the best there is: tough, rugged, jacks of all trade, professional sailors, ready, willing and capable to accomplish any task an angry sea could bring our way. Standard operating procedures all.

Our cook is the best there is. He always has fresh fruits and vegetables, quality beef, pork, poultry and all our favorite seafoods. He has quite the touch in the galley, preparing hearty meals for a hearty band of seafarers, so we can remain healthy and strong during our extended voyages.

We have never had a fire on board, but we do make certain that all the fire extinguishers, strategically located throughout the ship, are charged up to the max and that everyone knows how to handle them, just in case.

As captain of my ship, it is my duty to study weather conditions, political variations in all the geographical zones of our travels, and keep in constant touch with my government agencies so that I can avoid dangerous conditions, whether they be weather or politically related.

For example, though self defense is the most basic of human instincts, and no individual, much less a ship cruising international waters in these uncertain times would ever accept the irresponsible condition of unarmed helplessness, it is our routes along the coast of Somalia that demand my maximum attentiveness in these days of global terrorism.

Everyone knows about the horrors of Blackhawk Down, and this coastal hell zone of voodoo gangs is more unstable now than ever, virtually overrun with the lowest forms of life, the worst terrorist evildoers the world has ever known.

Knowing of this outrageously dangerous state of affairs, made that much more volatile by increased, nonstop attacks on shipping vessels by Somalian pirates, threatening lives, kidnapping and demanding enormous ransoms, I took the prudent steps to adequately protect myself, crew, ship and cargo. That other countries have made the insane mistake of emboldening these pirates by paying their ransoms, I knew it would just be a matter of time before these punk gangs would attack a ship sailing under the American flag. Bring it.

So, awhile back, after a briefing with my fellow sailors, we increased our artillery and ammunition on board and trained more diligently for a worse case scenario.

Each man on board has his own M-16 and 2000 rounds of ammo. Every third sailor is also equipped with a standard M-37 grenade launcher attached to his M-16 with a gross of grenades. And because the lives of my crew are sacred, I found a small company right here in the good old US of A that makes kits to protect them. I bought four, two fore and aft and two port and starboard. They are armored plate and sandbags, with a nice swivel mount for something on top. They didn’t cost much: about what I’d pay for a really good guitar.

And so, on top of the ones fore and aft is mounted a .Ma Deuce .50 caliber machinegun with 10,000 rounds, protecting our freedom one half-inch at a time. Port and starboard we have quad mounts of M-240 .30 cal machineguns with 10,000 rounds each. Every crew member is trained extensively in mastering each weapon, and these boys are all-American Sgt. York sniper marksmen, I assure you. We are not Navy SEALs, but we do our best.

We train diligently trained and keep a ten-man rotating 24 hour red alert watch detail, with instructions to identify any vessel approaching within 1000 yards of our ship, sound an “all hands on deck” alarm, fire one 20-round .50 cal burst across the bow of any invader vessel, then if it does not turn back, to literally blow it out of the water. Seems like the prudent thing to do.

Just as God gave us the individual right to keep and her arms to protect ourselves, our family and our homes, that self evident truth logic clearly applies to my ship and crew as well. We have a flag flying under our American flag with a coiled yellow snake that reads — “Don’t tread and me.” It is not just a cool phrase: we actually mean it.

I, for the life of me, cannot fathom the soulless mindset of choosing unarmed helplessness. It goes against the very pulse of mankind. This is my life, this is my ship, these men and this cargo are in my care. Helplessness invites and promotes evil to do as evil does.

On my ship of life, just the opposite message resonates. Keep your little terrorist dinghy at home boys, or I will turn you into shark food. Bon voyage.

(PS: As a very fortunate man, privileged and honored to train and hangout with the greatest warriors the world has ever known, it comes as no surprise to me that the mighty US Navy SEALs came through in this recent pirating of a US Merchant Martine ship, saved the kidnapped captain, killed three bad guys and captured a fourth. Those of us who cherish justice and good over evil salute the heroes of the American special ops and a Commander in Chief who gave the green light to do the right thing. God bless the warriors.)

Rock legend Ted Nugent is noted for his conservative political views and his vocal pro-hunting and Second Amendment activism. His smash bestseller Ted, White & Blue: The Nugent Manifesto, is now available at http://www.amazon.com. Nugent also maintains the Official Ted Nugent Site at http://www.TedNugent.com.

Obama Attacks the Foundations of America

Obama is busily running around the world with his wife Rue Paul selling out America.  He keeps apologizing for our greatness, and what we’ve done in the world in an attempt to make everyone like us.  Now he is publicly discounting and denying the heritage that this country was founded on.  Here is the quote from his April 6th speech in Turkey.

…That’s something that’s very important to me. And I’ve said before that one of the great strengths of the United States is — although as I mentioned, we have a very large Christian population, we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values…”

The reality of the foundation of our great nation can be summed up no better than in this quote from Patrick Henry:

“It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!”

— Patrick Henry

Sadly, we are BECOMING a nation that is not Christian as the forces of liberalism erode the value system that glued this country together since its inception.  The moral underpinning of America is systematically being destroyed.  Mr. Obama says that we are “bound by ideals and a set of values.”  Really?  And just what do you believe those “ideals” and “values” to be?  Based upon the evidence you have presented thus far, these are some of the values I think you believe in:

• Either the supremacy of Islam or atheism
  • You continue to publicly appease the Muslim terrorists and the Muslim states
  • You claim to be a Christian, yet almost everything you do publicly says that you are anything but a Christian
    • #1 – You support abortion.  Need I say more?
    • #2 – You have been caught lying so many times that no one can keep count
    • You attack the Christian foundations of our country constantly
  • You’re either a Muslim lying and pretending to be a Christian, or you are a deceived and foolish atheist
    
• Total government control of all aspects of citizens lives
• Ever increasing size of government
• Destruction of capitalism
  • Support for high corporate taxes which drive businesses to other countries
  • Picking winners and losers in business rather than letting the market decide
    
• Destruction of personal freedom
  • Elimination of freedom of speech (Fairness Doctrine, or whatever you call it this week; state sponsorship of specific news papers and TV outlets to the detriment of others)
  • Elimination of our 2nd Amendment rights to protect ourselves (see my post on Ted Nugent explaining the need for the 2nd Amendment)
    
• Elimination of personal wealth property rights
  • Against the will of the American people you have effectively sealed our doom financially by more than doubling all the debt held by this nation from its founding until you took office
  • After all is said and done, each tax paying family will owe at least$200,000 over the next 10 years to pay for your spending
  • Your spending is not constructive.  It forcibly takes what has been EARNED and gives it to those who have not earned and DO NOT DESERVE to share in this wealth

Obama may not be the anti-Christ, but I think he is at the very least a false prophet, and definitely anti-American.

Obamas Sell Out America Road Show

With the audacity of a dope, Barack Hussein Obama, the Obamasiah, the distributor-in-chief of the earned to the undeserving, who has been groomed to sell out America since he was a young man studying at the feet of terrorists and communists, who has been rehearsing the sellout of his country since the beginning of his presidential campaign, has just put act one of the Great American Sellout on the public stage.  Apologizing for American greatness?  What has the great nation of America done to make the world better anyway?  Let’s look at a few examples.

• Founded a nation based on individual freedom and capitalism that has advanced the human condition more in the last 200 years than in all of the previous history of mankind
• Pulled Europe’s bacon out of the fire not once, not twice, but THREE times in the last century
  • World War One
  • World War Two
  • The Cold War
• Saved the rest of the world twice
• Following WWII, rebuilt most of the world AT OUR OWN EXPENSE including THE COUNTRIES RESPONSIBLE FOR DESTROYING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE
• Even in the face of ever increasing taxes and a slide toward socialism, America is still THE MOST CHARITABLE NATION ON EARTH
• Any time there is a disaster or trouble around the world, who does everyone turn to for help, money, and/or military force?
  • No other socio-economic system on earth has been able to generate the kind of wealth and prosperity that America has
  • More than any other nation on earth, that wealth and prosperity has been used for good and to foster freedom

Yes, Mr. Uh-Bama,  America may not be perfect.  However, she is light years better than any other nation on this planet.  If that were not true, why do millions of people risk everything to come to America every year?  For all of you apologists who keep putting down America, I have two words for you: GET OUT! There is no other nation on earth where you could put down your own country and government like you do without being thrown in jail or executed.  If you dislike America so much, I have a deal for you.  You renounce your citizenship, surrender your U.S. passport, and I’ll take up a collection to give you a ride to the border or the beach.  As you exit America, don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.

Echo Of Europe

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, April 03, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Leadership: Sixty-one years to the day after Truman signed the Marshall Plan rebuilding war-torn Europe, President Obama apologizes to French youth for U.S. arrogance. Our defense of freedom is no shame.

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News reports quoted French men and women hailing the first African-American president of the United States as a hopeful sign for global racial reconciliation.

But is there another reason they’re so smitten? Might they be imagining the decline of America and the rise of a Eurocentric multilateralism?

Barack Obama’s words to the thousands of squealing young French and German fans at the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg certainly seem in harmony with such hopes.

“In America,” the president claimed, “there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

President Obama promised that “America is changing” and that there would now be “unprecedented coordination” in our policies.

He lamented that “we got sidetracked by Iraq”; he extolled the “social safety net that exists in almost all of Europe that doesn’t exist in the United States.”

And he described the G-20 summit he just attended in London last week as “a success of nations coming together, working out their differences, and moving boldly forward.”

But is multilateralism really the great hope for the future that the president and his French and German devotees are convinced it is?

“We just emerged from an era marked by irresponsibility,” the president claimed in reference to the global financial crisis.

But when he flaunts his “excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia” to begin the reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles with the claim that working with Moscow will “give us greater moral authority to say to Iran, ‘don’t develop a nuclear weapon,’ to say to North Korea, ‘don’t proliferate nuclear weapons,’ ” isn’t he actually embarking on a new era of naive foreign policy irresponsibility?

The Russia and Communist China the president wants to “partner” with are directly responsible for giving Iran and North Korea the nuclear expertise and equipment that have empowered those two oppressive terror states to pursue the ability to incinerate a city.

And does the president really believe that Kim Jong-il or the Ayatollah Khomenei respond, as he put it, to “moral authority” the way civilized leaders do?

It’s Europe that has things to learn from America, not vice versa.

Europe can learn that with an injection of U.S.-style market competition, French patients need not wait month-upon-month for heart bypass surgery. They can learn that Iran is a clear and present danger requiring force from a united free world, not talk.

While they’re at it, they might also learn to express some gratitude for the $13 billion American taxpayers shelled out during the post-war years (over $100 billion in current dollars) to rebuild their countries — after the U.S. came to their rescue during the war itself, spilling the blood of hundreds of thousands to defeat Hitler.

The United States of America is the world’s lone superpower — unless and until we choose to relinquish that responsibility.

The last thing our sometime friends and allies across the pond need is a U.S. president bemoaning America’s role in the world and serving as an echo chamber to those in Europe who would like to see us weakened or irrelevant.

Big transatlantic moment as Barack Obama bemoans “arrogance” of US and “insidious” anti-Americanism of Europe

Posted By: Toby Harnden at Apr 3, 2009 at 16:24:00 [General]

Posted in: Foreign Correspondents

Tags:

Barack Obama, Europe, nato, Rhenus Sports Arena, Strasbourg

Here in the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg, I’ve just witnessed what is surely a very important – I hesitate to say historic – moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behaviour.

“In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world,” he said in a prepared speech delivered before a campaign-style town hall meeting in which he took questions from mainly French and German students.

“Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”

Barack Obama at the Rhenus Arena Pic: Toby Harnden

But he balanced this startling mea culpa – or, perhaps more accurately, a George W. Bush culpa – with a clear message to Europeans that blaming America for everything was unacceptable.

“In Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognising the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad.”

Then, in classic Obama fashion, he sought to find a synthesis between the two poles. “On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.

“They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America.”

I was standing beside a White House official who told me afterwards that the speech was a concerted attempt to draw a line under the Bush years and offer an olive branch to Europe.

The time is fast approaching when Obama will have to be more than the unBush – that will not get him a pass in Europe indefinitely. He recognises this, saying: “I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaeda is still a threat.”

In concrete, immediate terms Obama wants to use his vow to rebuild America’s global relations by securing more troops for Afghanistan.

The rather woolly US language on this subject last week now seems to be hardening up considerably with Obama saying that although “we will be partnering with Europe on the development side and on the diplomatic side” that isn’t in itself enough.

“There will be a military component to it,” he said. “And Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone. We should not, because this is a joint problem, and it requires joint effort.”

Word is that Gordon Brown has just pledged to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We should soon know whether the continental Europeans will also be – as Obama put it while standing alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany – “stepping up to the plate”.

‘America’s Smartest Woman’ Is Making Us Look Stupid

Hillary only stuck with Bill because it kept her close to the seat of power, and by not throwing Bill to the wolves she held power over him.  She is a power hungry enabler just like her new boss.  She’ll throw him under the bus if given the opportunity.  In the meantime, she just runs around the world making America look like fools.  That may actually be true if you look at who we have elected as our representatives and to the highest office in the land.  The liberal plan for public education has finally come to fruition.

‘America’s Smartest Woman’ Is Making Us Look Stupid

by A.W.R. Hawkins (more by this author)

Posted 04/01/2009 ET

Hillary Clinton is best remembered for blaming the accusations against her husband on a “vast right wing conspiracy” (until he was forced to admit that he was giving a different dog a bone) and blaming her 2008 Democrat primary losses on the anti-female sentiment in certain parts of our country. (No, not anti-female.  Just anti-beyotch.) But who is she going to blame for her disastrous debut as secretary of state?

Can we blame the president? No; his foreign policy experience is even less than hers. And, yes: her entire foreign policy experience was kissing the late Yasser Arafat’s wife on the lips and embarrassing her hubby on a China trip by making a plea for women’s rights to a group assembled by the Chicoms to listen politely to her. But I digress.

Now Hillary, long considered “America’s smartest woman” by people like Elton John and James Carville, is taking her blame game and her conditional loyalty to the world as our Secretary of State.

Her debut was a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, to whom she presented what was supposed to be a “reset” button, making light of Obama’s desire to make nice with the bad guys. The button, though, wasn’t labeled “reset.” Instead, due to the fine work by her staff, it had the Russian word for “overload” (like an electronic circuit) painted on it. So while it’s obvious that Hillary ain’t the Great Communicator, it gets worse.

Her recent trips to China and Mexico prove this point.

En route to China for her February 20-22 visit with Chinese leaders, Hillary wasted no time in criticizing others for problems the U.S. is facing with North Korea. She polished up the old refrain “it’s Bush’s fault” by intimating that North Korea has nukes because of the failed policies of former president George W. Bush.

Hillary believes Bush failed to keep North Korea within the parameters of an agreement they signed while Hillary’s husband was president. But gatewaypundit.com has duly noted that the “North Korean regime [has] violated the agreed framework almost from the time it was signed during the Clinton years.”

And what retribution did they face for this violation during the Clinton years? None.

Once Hillary landed in China, she went from blaming Bush to turning her back on core Democrat constituencies like Amnesty International and pro-Tibetan support groups, both of which are outraged over China’s violations of human rights. Instead of calling Chinese leaders out on their mistreatment of whole classes of humanity, Hillary said, “[E]fforts to press China on issues like Taiwan, Tibet and human rights ‘can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis.’”

Hillary tried to clarify her reasoning by adding that there’s no use talking human rights with the Chinese because, “We pretty much know what they’re going to say.”

Since when is knowing what someone is “going to say” a valid reason for not doing what ought to be done?

In the German publication Spiegel, Günter Nooke, of the Christian Democratic Union Party, described the methods of America’s smartest woman as “very questionable.” He explained that the reason she really didn’t want to do anything to offend Chinese leaders was because her trip was part of a larger effort to seek “out fresh Chinese loans for the deeply-indebted American government.”

To put it succinctly, Hillary’s visit with Chinese leaders was conducted from a position of weakness. And such a mindset barred our inept secretary of state from standing up for Tibetans, the Taiwanese, or any other people group that China regularly assaults and threatens, for fear of financial loss.

Slate’s Annie Applebaum, a left leaning journalist, put it this way: “I…care quite a lot about what the new administration is going to do about human rights on the ground, and, to date, both Clinton and Obama have been utterly silent on that score.”

When Hillary traveled to Mexico last week, she further epitomized the sad state of our current administration by demonstrating that their refusal to call China on the carpet for obvious wrongs China had committed would not keep them from blaming America for wrongs that America had not committed.

Our smartest-woman-turned secretary of state told Mexico’s President Calderon that America had “a co-responsibility” for the violence currently overtaking Mexico: “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the death of police officers, soldiers and civilians.” (It doesn’t matter that we KNOW  that the weapons that the liberals are speaking about were given to the MEXICAN GOVERNMENT by our government and then stolen from the Mexican government by drug cartels, or given to the drug cartels by sympathizers/moles within the military.  This is just a way to build uninformed sympathy for an illegitimate gun ban in this country.)

Isn’t anyone responsible for their own actions anymore? And wouldn’t it be more accurate to point out that Mexico’s violence is the result of the fact that they’re an anti-capitalist third world country with a population largely comprised of laborers whose own government robs them of the chance to better themselves?

Yet it just keeps getting worse. From Monterrey, Mexico, America’s smartest woman told Calderon: “[The] partnership that you have created…between the public and the private sector is a model that we and others will look towards.” I guess this means we, in America, would be better off by living like citizens of the third world instead of citizens of an industrialized one?

I fear that America’s smartest woman has yet to understand that she’s not just a first lady anymore: her words mean something now that she’s become secretary of state. And not only is she setting us up to pay financial reparations by taking “co-responsibility” for the crimes of another nation, she’s actually making America look internationally impotent by lacking the backbone to demand that the Chinese uphold human rights or the clarity of thought needed to see that Mexico’s political structure eliminates any possibility for paupers to go from rags to riches.

Hillary’s trips to China and Mexico, and the words she used while in each country, confirm that we’ve no longer an administration that’s proud of this country, its values, or its accomplishments. Gone for now are the days when America deals from a position of strength.

HUMAN EVENTS columnist A.W.R. Hawkins has been published on topics including the U.S. Navy, Civil War battles, Vietnam War ideology, the Reagan Presidency, and the Rebirth of Conservatism, 1968-1988. More of his articles can be found at www.awrhawkins.com.

The Democrats AIG Bonus Scam

How is it that lying to congress is a federal offense, but congress lying to the American people is no problem at all? At the very least all of these clowns are guilty of impeachable offenses of lying to their employers (that’s US!). Actually, following the Democrat-set precedent of the Scooter Libby trial, they are guilty of criminal offenses that should land them all in jail. The Democrats lead by Obama are destroying truth, real justice, and personal responsibility in America. They, along with the Democrats posing as Republicans, all need to go to jail for their contributions to the destruction of America.

The Dems’ AIG Bonus Scam

by Fred J. Eckert (more by this author)
Posted 03/24/2009 ET
Updated 03/25/2009 ET

The Democratic Congress put on quite a show for us last week (and this week may top last).

In a memorable performance, they feigned surprise and shock that $165 million of taxpayers’ dollars were spent on bonuses for executives of the failed insurance giant AIG.

“If they don’t give the money back, we will put in place a new law that will allow us to tax these bonuses at a very high rate so that it is returned to its rightful owners — the taxpayers,” New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer fumed in a Senate speech. “So, to those of you getting these bonuses, be forewarned: you will not keep them.”

It was a scene reminiscent of the one in the movie Casablanca in which Captain Renault tells Rick he is closing down his saloon down because, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here” as a casino worker hands Renault a wad of money and says, “Your winnings, sir.”

Schumer knows perfectly well that this $165 million for AIG executive bonuses is something he voted for just a few weeks earlier.

The same is true of each of the other ten Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who have joined Schumer in signing a letter making the same threat he announced in his floor remarks.

It’s a farce — a sham.

What’s going on here is that the news media finally got around to mentioning that this $165 million for bonuses is part of the more than $170 billion of taxpayer money that Congress and President Obama insisted must be awarded in haste to the failed insurance giant American International Group, Inc (AIG). The public, understandably, is really angry.

So the Democrats are terrified that the public might actually start figuring out what an incredibly incompetent job President Obama and the Congressional Democrats are doing.

What if average citizens begin asking themselves the sort of questions that the Democrats can depend on the mainstream media to cover for them by not asking? Questions such as,

• Why was Congress so reckless in writing the bailout legislation that it didn’t include limitations to preclude waste such as those big bonuses?
• Anyone who reads the news knows that the financial markets are truly global. When writing the legislation, Congress had to know that AIG would pass billions of U.S. tax dollars to foreign banks. Why didn’t Congress make that contingent on equal or greater contributions by foreign governments? Why are the French, the Germans and the British having their banks rescued by American taxpayers?
• What other questionable expenditures of taxpayers’ dollars are buried in the barrels of billions the Democrats are rush delivering to seemingly anyone who puts his hand out? Weren’t there better alternatives than simply giving away taxpayers’ billions to anyone and everyone who got into severe trouble by taking reckless risks? Why no public hearings on this?
• Was the main reason for such a great rush to avoid close scrutiny of where the money was going? How many so-called “stimulus” expenditures are really nothing but gigantic rewards to political allies?

What the Democrats decided is that they needed a stunt to divert attention away from their stunning incompetence.

So, last week, the House voted to “take back” those contractually obligated bonuses, and the Democratic leadership has promised that the Senate will do the same this week. This is not a comedy the Democrats are performing for us — it’s a tragedy.

Equally tragic is the blatant disrespect for the Constitution of the United States that is on display throughout these shenanigans. Article 6 of the Constitution requires that the President and Member of Congress swear to support the Constitution. Of course, the Constitution doesn’t require them to understand it or even to read it, but let’s give the driving force behind this sham, Chuck Schumer, the benefit of the doubt and presume he has read it. He is, after all, a graduate of Harvard Law School, a member of the Senate’s Committee on the Judiciary, and was a member of the Judiciary Committee when he served in the House.

Schumer knows better — and so should every member of Congress and the President. Article I, Section 9, paragraph 3 of the Constitution prohibits what they are doing because it specifies that: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” And what they are doing constitutes a bill of attainder.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Guide to the Constitution says, “In common law, bills of attainder were legislative acts that, without trial, condemned specifically designated persons or groups to death…,” but the Supreme Court — going back to a case in 1810 — reads the Constitutional bar to prevent legislative confiscation of property.

As James Madison explained in The Federalist Papers No. 44: “Bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, and laws impairing the obligations of contracts, are contrary to the first principle of the social compact, and to every principle of sound legislation.”

Freedom from bills of attainder and ex post facto laws are the only individual rights which the Framers deemed so important as to insert in the original document protection against both federal and state infringement.

In 1965, in United States vs. Brown, the Supreme Court once again affirmed that the purpose of Article 1, Section 9, Paragraph 3 is to prohibit “legislative punishment, of any form or severity, of specifically designated persons or groups.”

The position of the U.S. Supreme Court over the years has been that this clause of the Constitution is deemed violated if 1) The legislation in question specifies a specific group; 2) It includes some form of punishment; and 3) It does not include a judicial trial.

One, two, three — guilty on each count. Which means that what’s coming next is that the Supreme Court will give thumbs down to their pathetic pretense. And then they will feign surprise and say they tried. Trying to con the American people into believing they have nothing to do with something the public is incensed about — that’s what this big charade is really all about.

This sham is an affront to the Constitution of the United States by the Congress of the United States and the President of the United States. They are violating the solemn oath they took to bear “true faith and allegiance” to the Constitution — and by doing this, they are guilty of neglecting to “well and faithfully discharge” the duties of their offices.

Many of them don’t know what they are doing.

Many of them know but don’t care.

That’s how bad things are in Washington right now.

It’s change, all right — an appalling change from what the Founders of the American Republic had in mind for governing this great country.

Fred J. Eckert is a former conservative Republican Congressman from New York and twice served as a US Ambassador under President Reagan, who called him �a good friend and valuable advisor.�

AIG Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Do you think they’ll stop their “collections” with the AIG execs? If you do, I have some beachfront property in Florida I’ll sell you when the tide goes down. Once Obama and Co. un-cork the bottle that’s holding the tax genie, that genie will likely never go back in the bottle. Is what they’re attempting to do constitutional? Constitution, shmonstitution. Who needs rules? Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank and company don’t care about the constitution or us peasants. They have an agenda, constitution be damned.

The AIG (And Everyone Else) Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Posted By Rory Cooper On March 20, 2009 @ 11:43 am In Ongoing Priorities | 33 Comments

Whom It Really Targets

• The Hit List: H.R. 1586 retroactively taxes AIG employees who are due deferred compensation and would tax that compensation at a 90% rate [1].
• A Much Broader Sweep: Going forward, the bill also imposes a 90% federal tax rate [1] on anyone employed by a company receiving $5 billion in TARP funds who has a family income over $250,000, individual income over $125,000 (if single or married but filing separately), or performance pay larger than adjusted gross income.
• What Defines a Bonus? Under H.R. 1586, a “bonus [1]” is any amount over an employee’s base salary, including retention and performance pay and even deferred compensation. But compensation in banking and finance is heavily geared towards performance, with relatively lower base salaries.
• Counterproductive Policy: While taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on excessive bonus compensation, broad-based pay caps and punitive clawbacks will hurt performance and slow economic recovery. The government is ill-suited to set private-sector pay scales and risks causing more financial damage.
• Your Branch Manager: Anecdotally, a “Regional Branch Manager” for Bank of America who makes $250,000 plus bonuses for outstanding customer service at his branches would be taxed at 90% due to this bill.

The Real Problem, Plain and Simple

• How We Got Here: Senator Chris Dodd would like you to forget [2] that he inserted specific language recognizing AIG’s executive compensation into the $800 billion stimulus bill, which Finance Chairman Max Baucus now admits [3] nobody read.
• Government Bailouts: This is the inevitable result of government bailouts, which turn private concerns (such as compensation agreements between private parties) into public business, bringing politics where it is likely to do damage.
• Hasty Bills Make Disastrous Policy: The very fact that this problem was created by a mega-bill that wasn’t properly reviewed before passage—and is now being “corrected” by a hastily put together bill that hasn’t been properly reviewed—is beyond ironic.
• Avoid This in the Future: To avoid further entanglement of the federal government and taxpayers in routine business matters, President Obama and Congress should reject further bailouts and insist those already done be unwound as quickly as possible.

It’s Not Constitutional, Plain and Simple

• Bill of Attainder: The Constitution prohibits Congress [4] from punishing individuals, which is the role of the justice system. This prevents legislative tyranny and is essential to ensuring that those accused of wrongs receive due process and can mount a defense. It also encourages “sound legislation,” which is not accomplished by legislators being whipped into a frenzy and interfering in personal and economic affairs.
• An End Run? Congress added more taxes to the bill to get around the bar of bills of attainder, but it can’t make an unconstitutional act permissible by cloaking it in the guise of a tax bill.
• Taxation Not the Answer: Congress is prohibited [4] from using the tax code as a weapon of convenience against a select group of unfavorable people, even when the political opportunity exists.