Daily Archives: January 3, 2013

01/3/13

Patriots, Snap out of it! America Is Too Extraordinarily Precious to Surrender!

By: Lloyd Marcus

My late Mama instructed, “Never put your business in the street.” Due to the extremely serious situation in which we find our country today, I must share my personal testimony (put my business in the street) to save America.

In 1993, I quit my 15 year position at an ABC affiliate TV station in Baltimore to pursue a new career in music. At that time, callers on the Rush Limbaugh show were losing their jobs to down-sizing. Rush encouraged them to view it as an opportunity to pursue their dreams. Inspired and with Mary’s blessings, I quit my position, despite being in line for department head.

In short, Mary and I lost everything – home, cars and savings. On numerous occasions, we were financially down-for-the-count with no hope in sight. Every time, God came to our rescue with just enough to keep us going. During our several years of “wilderness experience,” Mary and I grew in character, wisdom and gratitude. But most of all, we learned to trust God.

So, while I am in solidarity with the frustration of fellow patriots across America regarding the reelection of Obama, the surrender of the Republicans, the transformation of what it means to be an American and the deterioration of our culture, I MUST continue fighting to restore/take back America!

I cannot and will not join in your hopelessness and surrender.

My firm resolve and optimism are rooted in the Word of God. Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

I can not tune out the news and allow an evil, Godless, liberal Administration and mainstream media to treat the Constitution like toilet paper and ravish our culture. Edmund Burke said, “The only thing needed for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.”

Patriots, along with myself, you are good men and women whom God has prepared for such a time as this – to save America. You fought valiantly over the past four years. I totally understand and share your disappointment, anger and sadness for our country.

However, sticking your heads in the sand is not the answer. For me to do so would feel like me telling God, “I no longer trust You. Thus, I will not continue the mission you called me to fulfill.” For me, such a decision is impossible.

I am Chairman of a new PAC, Conservative Campaign Committee https://secure.donationsafe.com/ccc, to fight back with TV ads and etc.

Brother and sister patriots, come back – get back into the battle. America is too extraordinarily precious to do otherwise. We cannot simply allow them to “have it!”

Lloyd Marcus, Proud Unhyphenated American
Chairman, Conservative Campaign Committee
LloydMarcus.com

01/3/13

Conference on Sovereignty

Arlene from Israel

This past Tuesday, here in Jerusalem, the Women in Green — joined now by some other groups — sponsored their third annual conference: Application of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

The turnout was incredible. Not only did it exceed numbers for the previous two conferences by a good deal, planners had to move the venue because registration was so robust. And even in that larger venue the hall was packed. This provides strong evidence for what I have been saying — that the Israeli populace is moving right, and is, indeed, weary with notions of a “two-state solution.”

What I would like to do here is provide an overview and then touch on highlights.

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If there was an over-arching message delivered by speakers (many, not all) it is that sovereignty is something that has to be approached in stages. It is simply not realistic to imagine that the Israeli government is going to get up one fine morning and declare all of Judea and Samaria annexed and fully part of Israel.

What is important, first of all, is the stimulation of public discourse on the issues. People just do not understand, do not have solid information.

It falls to those of use who do understand, and do wish to promote sovereignty, to create the atmosphere for dialogue. And that dialogue must be advanced rationally, via the sharing of facts, and not emotions.

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And then, there are measures that might be taken to move the process along. Speakers differ on exactly what those measures should be: application of civil law to all of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria; annexation of area C; etc..

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Yuli Edelstein (Likud), Minister of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs, suggested that without initiatives such as the current conference, the issue would not arise on the government’s agenda.

Credit: Israelfrontline

Edelstein warned that application of sovereignty would not automatically resolve international challenges couched in legal language. But sovereignty would send the world a message, none-the-less.

It is easier to face the international community when we are united by a consensus, he observed. The problem now, however, is that the government sends an ambivalent message instead of stating clearly that we have rights over our land.

He sees several scenarios being pushed: The far left is ideological and sees the need to relinquish land to the Arabs for ethical reasons. The pragmatic left concedes that we have rights to the land, but says that in the current international climate we have no choice but to concede it.

An optimistic scenario to the right of these positions says that we must approach the situation in stages, and this is what he supports. To the right of this are groups not content with stages and pushing for immediate sovereignty as an expression of our rights.

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Yari Levin (Likud), Chair of the Knesset House Committee, warned that we must not confuse historical merit in terms of our claim to the land, which is solid, with a legislative process, that is going to take time.

Credit: Indynews

What we can do, says Levin, is apply Israeli law to all those Jews living in Judea and Samaria, put in place laws that permit Jewish development in Judea and Samaria, and pass other constructive legislation that will apply to all of Judea and Samaria.

(As to laws that permit Jewish development in Judea and Samaria, there is a great deal to say — I have already touched upon this in several contexts but expect to be revisiting it in greater detail with regard to the Levy Report. The bias against Jewish development is currently horrendous.)

Levin is adamant in his opinion that there should be no singling out of major settlement blocs. Any legislation put in place must apply to all Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Following this, there should be an attempt to apply full Israeli law to all of Judea and Samaria. But now we must advance plans by building another school and another house.

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Moshe Feiglin heads the Jewish Leadership faction in Likud and is currently on Likud’s list.

Credit: gavrielsanders

Feiglin made an extremely important point, and one we cannot afford to lose sight of: We have to pay attention to places where we are supposed to already have sovereignty, but are losing it. This is true in communities such as Lod, where there are neighborhoods that Arabs have taken over.

And it is particularly true on Har Habayit — the Temple Mount. The attorney general has said that Israeli law applies on the Mount, and the High Court has said Jews have a right to pray there. But the police have determined that Jewish praying on the Mount will foment Arab violence and thus have forbidden it.

Earlier on the day of the conference, Feiglin went up on the Mount, as he regularly does, bowed down and began to pray, and was promptly arrested by the policeman who had been following him.

Every time I write about this sort of incident, I find myself ashamed to the core. This is not how a Jewish government should be managing matters on the site that is the holiest to the Jewish people simply in order to appease or avoid confrontation with Arabs. And, indeed, perhaps we need to raise our voices and promote activism on this issue before we talk about annexing Judea and Samaria.

It’s all of a piece, of course. A government that does not have the courage to protect sovereignty on the Mount is not going to promote legislation for sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.

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Adv. Alan Baker, an international lawyer, former Israeli ambassador to Canada, and a member of the Edmund Levy Committee, which issued the Levy Report, spoke about that report.

Credit: lawubc

What he had to say was exceedingly important. His presentation touches upon so much however, that I want to return to examine it in greater detail on another day.

The mandate of the three-person Levy Committee was to examine the status of Judea and Samaria and to recommend ways to deal with the land.

This was with regard to considering the highly ambiguous situation that pertains there, not with an eye to legalizing illegal construction. An important point must be made, however: Former prime minister Sharon had mandated Talia Sasson with examining the situation in Judea and Samaria, as well. Her report was never formally adopted by an Israeli government. But she made a list of outposts that had been constructed without full authorization — they were “unauthorized” — and changed the term to “illegal” (which is not the same thing). The concept of “illegal outposts” was then adopted by the international community.

For a long time, there was a freeze on construction that prevented the issuance of permits. There was no possibility of continuing construction with full authorization (with all proper signatures). Construction done in this manner was termed “illegal.”

The over-riding question is whether Israel has rights in Judea and Samaria on the ground. Is Israeli presence there “illegal”?

The committee examined the idea that public lands — not privately owned — in Judea and Samaria were automatically Arab and rejected this approach. Ottoman, Jordanian, Israeli and international law were considered in depth.

We do not have “occupation” in the sense implied by international law because we did not move onto the land of a legal sovereign. Our situation is sui generis, which means one of a kind — without precedent or basis in international law.

The committee rejected completely application of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

We are the indigenous people in this region. After examining the legal history, the committee concluded that the Jewish people has well established rights that cannot be negated or denied. We are talking here about San Remo, the Balfour Declaration and more. These declarations are treaty statements.

Instead of apologizing, we should state our rights. People simply don’t know.

The land is not Palestinian — there is no document that gives the Arabs the right to the land. What we are dealing with is “disputed” land, not “occupied Palestinian territory.”

The committee hopes the next government will relate seriously to the Levy Report.

More to follow, including on the Levy recommendations.

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Ze’ev Elkin (Likud), Chair of the Coalition and Chair of the Knesset Eretz Yisrael Committee, alluded to two historical periods here in Israel since 1967.

Credit: Wikipedia

From 1967 until 1992 or 1993, the trend was preserving the status quo in Judea and Samaria. Communities were built there, and there was an assumption that matters would unfold on their own as facts were established on the ground.

From 1992 [with the advent of Oslo] until the present, there has been a back-stepping. We are in a state of confusion now and he hopes this second period is coming to an end. He believes (there is not consensus on this yet) that what Abbas did at the UN has brought the Oslo period to a finish.

Israel postponed the discourse on sovereignty and now we need a new approach. We must apply sovereignty to the maximum possible at any given moment. Slowly we can change the public discourse.

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Dr. Moti Kedar, Middle East expert and lecturer at Bar Ilan University, was asked to speak on the Arab reaction to sovereignty.

Credit: sassywire

But, asked Kedar, did Arabs ever agree to sovereignty over Tel Aviv or Haifa? Have Egypt and Jordan — both of which have peace treaties with Israel — ever recognized Israel as the state of the Jewish people?

Kedar said that we urgently require an international television station that broadcasts in English and Arabic and that simply tells the truth. People have access to CNN and a host of other stations biased against Israel, while Israel is simply missing from that broadcast discussion.

He further observed that the courts should have nothing to do with determination of borders. This is a political issue, for the Knesset. The courts should be involved strictly with legal issues, which he believes calls for a change in Basic Law.

Kedar, an expert on Muslim/Arab culture, said that only those who are victors can secure their place in the Middle East. Those who seek peace are seen as vanquished and get kicked.

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Caroline Glick, columnist, senior editor at the Jerusalem Post and senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs for the Center for Security Policy, was one of four persons on a panel that discussed the issue of the status of Arabs after the application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.

Credit: sassywire

People are afraid of the demographic issue, she said — the fear that if we incorporate Judea and Samaria into Israel fully we will be demographically overwhelmed. Birthrates are shifting, however, and the public needs to be educated on this. She sees a population 2/3 Jewish and 1/3 Arab.

The precedents that exist on this issue were with Jerusalem and the Golan, and there were no problems encountered in either of these areas. Every Arab would be given the opportunity to request citizenship, provided he or she met the criteria established by the Ministry of the Interior — with regard to renouncing terrorism and accepting Israel as a Jewish state.

Glick says we are now entering a period that is historically revolutionary. To proceed the issue must happen in the context of a larger change in the Israeli public, and changes in the Israeli legal system will be required. People are tired of the way things currently operate, specifically with regard to the High Court (B’gatz).

She noted the fact that Habayit Hayehudi is expected to be part of the next coalition (from her mouth to Heaven!) and it is advocating annexation of Area C. This represents a huge change.

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Other participants on the panel included MK Arieh Eldad, Adv. Elyakim Haetzni, and Dr. Martin Sherman.

You can see the entire conference dubbed in English here (skip the first five minutes, as that is a film of last years conference):

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163781#.UOPd8eQz2qo

In a few days Women in Green will be providing links to each speaker separately, in English and Hebrew.

01/3/13

Taxing Behavior

By: Gerald Loeffers

Hello everyone! How about that cliff both parties pushed America over? Congratulations to the Speaker of the House for being reelected to play four more years of golf with Obama. Look over the so-called deal… it seems the tax hikes are built in and a special deal for elites as well. But today, let’s look at the current tax system and how it determines your behavior… wait, you’re telling me this is the first you’ve heard of this?

Government knows if you tax/punish one behavior, like a $200 tax stamp on certain guns, or you give tax breaks on a separate behavior, like the child per household tax break, then they can determine who will do what and track it.

MARRIAGE, LIFE, DEATH

So, a young and cute couple want to get married. Well, there’s a big fat tax for that! You two get automatically put in a higher tax bracket. So, you two want to buy and own a house and property? Well, there’s a life long property tax that gets hooked up to your mortgage payment. Good luck paying that with a $25,000 a year job. So you both have jobs… there are plans to raise your payroll tax to 50%. Enjoy what you get, because that’s it and don’t forget the government wants your 401K as soon as possible. They have to pay for that Hawaii vacation. So, you want a new car… do you get a standard car or one of those hybrids that gets so-called tax breaks on them? Hey! Remember Government Motors knows what’s its doing. So you gas up your new car… did you know that 60% of the price of gas is hidden in local and federal taxes? Did you know some cities are planning to tax you to drive around? Some of these cities want up to $1 a mile. How would you enforce that anyway? Then there is the car’s annual license fees that arbitrarily get raised. So, you think you want to play the stock market? Well… plan to lose a lot of money even if you get a good stock because… ding, ding, ding! You are going to get hit with a double dip tax fee for investment income. Then you have Obamacare. The most overreaching tax law ever put on the books. This sucker plans to tax/punish you for not buying the single payer health plan, which violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Plus, they will still tax large sums of your money anyways to pay for others medical bills. Congratulations! You’re the biggest loser America! Now Social Security, which is paid by FICA tax, is itself taxed as well. I thought this was a lock box secured entitlement program. That tax return that most people get back… that’s not government money going to you, it’s just a little bit of your money coming back to you – duh. Then you die. Did you leave valuables, property or money behind for your children and family? Forget about it! The government wants its cut first with the inheritance or death tax.

FREE STUFF… UM, NOT REALLY

Where do you think all that free Obama stuff, food stamps, unemployment checks, S.S.I., Medicare, Social Security, Obama cell phones, disability checks, government food programs (like cheese) all come from? That’s right… it comes right out of your hard earned pocket and goes into some of the laziest, dope smoking, con-artists of all time’s pockets – the 47% Mitt Romney talked about that wouldn’t vote for him since he offered only personal responsibility and not free cell phones. Do you know what the average person has to do to get these handouts? They have to fill out paperwork and have a case handler approve certain behaviors (like not working or getting married or going to church). So, as it’s been said before… there is nothing for free.

ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS

Prohibition failed because of the rise of the black market and gangster violence. The government then decided to create another taxing agency, the A.T.F. But between you and me, that should only stand for a corner store in my neighborhood. These incompetent boobs enforce taxes and laws on two personal vices and one constitutionally protected right. Is it just me, or is that weird? This agency has the most convoluted regulations on guns and importation laws. They are part of the current goon gang of the anti-gun owner mob. We pay these jerks with our own tax money to tell us what guns we can have, what cigarettes to smoke and what booze we can drink… that’s taxing behavior.

01/3/13

House Speaker Boehner Votes for Obama’s Marxism

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Mostly with Democratic votes, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Tuesday voted for what the Obama Administration said was “the most progressive income tax code in decades.” It was Karl Marx who called for a “heavy progressive or graduated income tax” system in order to redistribute the wealth and establish a socialist state.

The bill was brought to the floor by Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who voted for it, without a spending cut amendment. He says he will seek “entitlement reform and pro-growth tax reform” sometime later this year.

The vote in favor of passage of the tax increase bill was 257-167, with 85 Republicans joining 172 Democrats in the affirmative. A total of 151 Republicans and 16 Democrats voted against.

The liberal media will scoff at the idea that the House voted for Marxism. But a classic John Chamberlain article in The Freeman notes that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, had advocated a heavy progressive tax as a means of despoiling the “bourgeoisie” and “softening middle class society up for the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Marx understood how class envy and jealousy could serve as the basis for the seizure and maintenance of political power.

Scottish economist Ramsay McCulloch said in 1845: “The moment you abandon . . . the cardinal principle of exacting from all individuals the same proportion of their income or their property, you are at sea without rudder or compass and there is no amount of injustice or folly you may not commit.”

That principle is tax equity. As noted by Chamberlain, “a rich man would pay more taxes than a poor man, naturally. But every dollar of assessed property value, or of income, or of spending, would be taxed in equal amount, at flat percentage rates. Dollars would be treated equally, no matter who owned them, or spent them. Thus the citizens would be accorded the ‘equal protection of the laws’ — and their ‘privileges and immunities’ would be equal, as provided for in the United States Constitution. Any other way of treating taxation was regarded as discriminatory, or as putting penalties on ability, ambition, and success.”

Obama and his administration understand precisely what they have achieved and, more importantly, what they forced 85 House Republicans, including Speaker John Boehner, to accept. An Obama administration “fact sheet” declared, “for the first time in 20 years, Congress will have acted on a bipartisan basis to vote for significant new revenue.” The left-leaning Politico trumpets the news: “GOP anti-tax policy goes over the cliff.”

Not only do we now have “the most progressive income tax code in decades,” but the bill that is now law does not include an extension of the payroll tax “holiday.” This means about $1,000 a year for an average worker.

In a story headlined, “Bigger Tax Bite for Most Under Fiscal Pact,” the New York Times confirms that about 77 percent of households would pay a larger share of income to the federal government this year, and that the legislation is expected to reduce economic growth by as much as 1 percent in the first quarter of 2013.

Zubi Diamond, author of Wizards of Wall Street, tells AIM, “If you are unemployed, or behind in your mortgage, or struggling to pay your bills, or your home is underwater, this is not going to change your situation for the better. If anything, it will make it worse.”

Diamond, a successful businessman and stock market investor and trader, came from Africa to the U.S. to seek the American dream. He says Obama’s attacks on the capitalist system are succeeding because people do not realize that Obama’s allies in the hedge fund industry were behind the economic collapse in 2008 that led to his election and that they continue to rig and “loot” the system.

“The perceived unfairness or imperfection associated with capitalism in America today is because of the parasitic anti-capitalist hedge fund short sellers on Wall Street, who are members of the Managed Funds Association,” he argues. “They hide in the body of our capitalist society, and suck the life and liquidity out of our economy by fraud and manipulation.”

Diamond predicts a “double dip” recession that he sees as part of a strategy “to cut America down to size, in order to achieve a global balance of power” that will diminish America’s economic and military clout.

Some experts, however, think that more printing of money by the Federal Reserve will keep the appearance of an economic recovery going.

Christopher T. Mahoney, who retired from Moody’s in 2007 after 30 years on Wall Street, expects to see the Dow around 15,000 by next Christmas. He says the Fed’s balance sheet should grow by $1 trillion next year, a 36% increase over where it is now.

In his “Capitalism and Freedom” blog, he says, “The money supply (M2) has grown by almost $3 trillion since the crash, for a total growth of 40%. Since the crash, nominal GDP has grown from $14 trillion to $16 trillion, an increase of 14%. The Fed’s plan is that by growing the monetary base by about a third in 2013, nominal growth will accelerate to a level that would allow unemployment to decline from its current 7.8% to a targeted 6.5%.”

For his part, Obama said the legislation which passed the Senate and then the House “enshrines, I think, a principle into law that will remain in place as long as I am President: The deficit needs to be reduced in a way that’s balanced. Everyone pays their fair share. Everyone does their part. That’s how our economy works best. That’s how we grow.”

Commonly accepted definitions of “enshrine” include “to enclose in or as if in a shrine” and “to cherish as sacred.”

Neil Munro of the conservative Daily Caller wrote an article interpreting these remarks to mean that Obama will demand another tax increase for 2013. But Obama did not say how much more “heavy” or “graduated” the progressive income tax should be.

In France, where they have an explicitly socialist government, a proposed 75 percent income tax rate on the rich was struck down as “a breach of equality of taxes” and ruled to be unconstitutional.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].