Author Archives: SkOw4Liberty

05.10.13
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AP: Obama declared health care law ‘is here to stay’

Caught between nervous Democrats and emboldened Republicans, President Barack Obama on Friday stepped up the sales pitch on his health care overhaul as the final elements of his top domestic achievement go into effect. With his legacy and the law’s success at stake, Obama said: “The law is here to stay.”

Behind the scenes, the White House readied a campaign-style effort to get healthy young people to sign up for the insurance “exchanges” in order to keep premium costs from skyrocketing. On Capitol Hill, House Republicans are planning yet another vote to try to try to repeal the law.

The insurance exchanges are the centerpiece of the landmark overhaul of the nation’s health insurance system and the White House mobilization is crucial to the success of the health care law and, by extension, to Obama’s place in history as the first president in decades to expand health care coverage.

“There’s a lot that this law is already doing for Americans with insurance,” Obama said during a Mother’s Day-themed event at the White House. “There’s a lot more that’s going to happen for folks who don’t have insurance.”

But he cautioned: “We still have a lot of work to do in the coming months to make sure more Americans can buy affordable health coverage.”

And he urged the public not to be swayed by what he said were scare tactics from critics of the law who might blame it for rising premiums.

“Don’t be bamboozled,” he said.

Underscoring the policy and political consequences, the White House plans to employ both the resources of government as well as those of his reconfigured political operation as it aimed to enroll 7 million people in health insurance exchanges between Oct. 1 and the end of March. The goal is to get 30 million people to sign up within five years.

Moreover, the composition of those signing up for the new exchanges matters just as much as the overall totals. In order to keep premium costs down, officials say they must register 2.7 million healthy people between the ages of 18 and 35 in order to counteract the costs of ensuring seniors and people with health problems.

The White House’s hopes that Obama’s East Room event would draw broad attention crumpled, however, when the president’s event had to compete for attention with revelations about administration deliberations over the September attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, and an acknowledgement by the Internal Revenue Service that its workers had singled out conservative groups for additional review.

The effort comes as the public remains divided over the health care law. As a result, the White House is planning an election-like campaign to target those uninsured or individually insured young people, an effort reminiscent of the sophisticated voter outreach that helped Obama twice win the White House. The administration has identified where many of the healthy and uninsured young live and will be working with health clinics, hospitals, churches and other groups to sign them up for the exchanges.

Organizing for Action, an outside political group supporting Obama, will also be involved in the effort to promote the exchanges.

Administration officials say one-third of the young people they need to sign up for the exchanges live in California, Texas and Florida. Just over 50 percent are minorities and 57 percent are men.

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Click here for the full story:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-05-10-15-39-49

05.09.13
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Judge Napolitano: Why We Should Mistrust the Government

It should come as no surprise that President Obama told Ohio State students at graduation ceremonies last week that they should not question authority and they should reject the calls of those who do. He argued that “our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule” has been so successful that trusting the government is the same as trusting ourselves; hence, challenging the government is the same as challenging ourselves. And he blasted those who incessantly warn of government tyranny.

Yet, mistrust of government is as old as America itself. America was born out of mistrust of government. The revolution that was fought in the 1770s and 1780s was actually won in the minds of colonists in the mid-1760s when the British imposed the Stamp Act and used writs of assistance to enforce it. The Stamp Act required all persons in the colonies to have government-sold stamps on all documents in their possession, and writs of assistance permitted search warrants written by British troops in which they authorized themselves to enter private homes ostensibly to look for the stamps.

These two pieces of legislation were so unpopular here that Parliament actually rescinded the Stamp Act, and the king’s ministers reduced the use of soldier-written search warrants. But the searches for the stamps turned the tide of colonial opinion irreversibly against the king.

The same king also prosecuted his political adversaries in Great Britain and here for what he called
“seditious libel” – basically, criticizing the government. Often that criticism spread and led to civil disobedience, so the British sought to punish it at its source. The prosecutions were so unpopular here, and so contrary to the spirit of what would become the Declaration of Independence, that when the British went home and the Framers wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was added, the First Amendment assured that the new government could not punish speech.

Yet barely 10 years into “our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule,” in the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts, Congress at the instigation of President John Adams criminalized
free speech that was critical of the new government.

How did it come about that members of the same generation – in some cases the very same human beings – that declared in the First Amendment that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech” in fact enacted laws that did just that?

As morally wrong, as violative of the natural law, as unconstitutional as these laws were, they were not historical incongruities. Thomas Jefferson – who opposed and condemned the acts (he was Adams’ vice president at the time) – warned that it is the nature of government over time to increase and of liberty to decrease. And that’s why we should not trust government. In the same era, James Madison himself agreed when he wrote, “All men having power should be distrusted to a certain degree.”

The Alien and Sedition Acts were but the beginning of a long train of government abuses visited upon people in America as a consequence of the “experiment in self-rule.” I am not quoting Obama’s Ohio State speech to nitpick, but rather to establish a base line for my argument that he rejects core principles and historical lessons and, most troubling, the natural law itself when he opines that government should be trusted because it has gained power via self-rule.

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Click below to read the full article on Lew Rockwell’s website.

http://lewrockwell.com/napolitano/napolitano100.html

05.08.13
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Reason.com: Are All US Phone Calls Being Recorded?

The real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy. But a seemingly spontaneous admission this week by a former FBI counterterrorism agent provides a rather startling acknowledgment of just how vast and invasive these surveillance activities are.

Over the past couple days, cable news tabloid shows such as CNN’s Out Front with Erin Burnett have been excitingly focused on the possible involvement in the Boston Marathon attack of Katherine Russell, the 24-year-old American widow of the deceased suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev. As part of their relentless stream of leaks uncritically disseminated by our Adversarial Press Corps, anonymous government officials are claiming that they are now focused on telephone calls between Russell and Tsarnaev that took place both before and after the attack to determine if she had prior knowledge of the plot or participated in any way.

On Wednesday night, Burnett interviewed Tim Clemente, a former FBI counterterrorism agent, about whether the FBI would be able to discover the contents of past telephone conversations between the two. He quite clearly insisted that they could.

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Click below for the full article.

http://reason.com/24-7/2013/05/06/are-all-us-phone-calls-being-recorded

05.08.13
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Reason.com: When Cops Claimed the Right to Search Anyone Who “Causes Fear in a Community”

Radley Balko has published a series of stories at The Huffington Post that use the government’s response to the marathon bombings as a newshook to write about Boston’s recurring role in the history of militarized policing. The most interesting article in the sequence, I think, is the segment on the modern drug war. Here’s the setup:

Also available: Beneath the Warrior Cop, Escape from the Warrior Cop, Conquest of the Warrior Cop, and Battle for the Warrior Cop.In the early 1980s, Boston authorities introduced widespread stop-and-frisks, barricades, and other high-intensity policing tactics in high-crime neighborhoods like Roxbury and Matapan. Critics claimed police were implementing a “search on sight” policy of black men in some neighborhoods, doing away even with the low bar of needing reasonable suspicion before conducting stop-and-frisks. Police admitted a search-on-sight policy, but only for anyone known to be or suspected of being in a gang, along with anyone who associates with those people. They also claimed to be following a vague policy that allowed them to search anyone they felt “causes fear in a community.”
According to a subsequent lawsuit, black men were stopped, patted down, and in some cases strip searched for no more than wearing the sports logo of a particular professional sports team. A Boston Globe investigation found 15 people who had been stripped searched on the street, but were never arrested.
State Sen. William Owens said the tactics were alienating an entire generation of black men, and that had effectively imposed martial law on some communities. Tensions boiled over in 1989 when a plainclothes officer shot 30-year-old Rolando Car during a stop-and-frisk after mistaking Carr’s keys for a gun.

At another point, “Residents of Lawrence were issued passes that they had to show to get into and out of the neighborhood. Anyone entering Lawrence had their vehicle license plate documented by police manning a barricade. A letter was then sent to the registered owner of the vehicle to let him know the car had been spotted in Lawrence.” The police chief, Balko notes, “described the tactics as a form of community policing.”

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Click here for the full article.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/05/06/when-cops-claimed-the-right-to-search-an

05.07.13
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Reuters: Fight expected in House on online sales tax

The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Monday to give states the power to enforce their sales tax laws on online purchases, but the legislation faces a tougher fight in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 69 to 27 to back the measure, which pits brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart Stores Inc and cash-hungry state governments against such Web retailers as eBay Inc and Republicans wary of new tax measures.

“Call me a conservative, but I believe the right approach to tax fairness is to reduce rates — not force higher rates onto others,” said Tom Graves, a House Republican from Georgia.

House Speaker John Boehner plans to send the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, a senior Republican aide said. That will mean hearings ahead. The Senate uncharacteristically bypassed this step.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte, a Republican, has reservations about the legislation, including its complexity and potential impact on small businesses, a spokeswoman said.

Goodlatte has yet to schedule any hearings on it, she said.

Backers of the measure include major traditional retailers Wal-Mart andBest Buy Co Inc, as well as e-tailing giant Amazon.com Inc, which wants to simplify its U.S. state sales tax payments.

Opponents include many other online merchants such as eBay, Overstock.com Inc and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist. Lawmakers from states without sales taxes – like Montana, Oregon and New Hampshire – largely oppose the measure.

States that charge sales tax have largely been unable to require e-tailers to collect it from purchasers unless the e-tailer had a physical presence in the state. Otherwise, consumers are supposed to pay the tax, but very few do.

Some states have made separate arrangements with Amazon on the issue, while others have not.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/07/net-us-usa-tax-internet-idUSBRE9450QZ20130507

05.07.13
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Lew Rockwell: Another Nail in the Neocon Coffin

The recent opening of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity was a watershed moment in American history. There has never been anything quite like it. Ideologically diverse, the Ron Paul Institute reaches out to all Americans, and indeed to people all over the world, who find the spectrum of foreign-policy opinion in the United States to be unreasonably narrow. Until Ron Paul and his new institute, there was no resolutely anti-interventionist foreign-policy organization to be found.

Neoconservatives have not responded warmly to the announcement of Ron’s new institute. Whatever their particular gripes, we can be absolutely certain of the real reason for their unhappiness: they have never faced systematic, organized opposition before.

The Democrats would see the earth tumble into the sun before supporting nonintervention abroad, so they pose no fundamental problem for the neocons. Ron Paul, on the other hand, is real opposition, and he can mobilize an army. The neocons know it. What’s Tim Pawlenty up to these days? Where are his legions of well-read young fans who seek to carry on his philosophy? You see the point.

For the first time, strict nonintervention will have a permanent voice in American life. It is another nail in the neocon coffin. The neocons know they are losing the young. Bright kids who believe in freedom aren’t rallying to Mitt Romney or David Horowitz, and, like anyone with a critical mind and a moral compass, they are not going along with the regime’s war propaganda.

At this historic moment, I thought it might be appropriate to set down some thoughts on war – a manifesto for peace, as it were.

(1) Our rulers are not a law unto themselves.

Our warmakers believe they are exempt from normal moral rules. Because they are at war, they get to suspend all decency, all the norms that govern the conduct and interaction of human beings in all other circumstances. The anodyne term “collateral damage,” along with perfunctory and meaningless words of regret, are employed when innocent civilians, including children, are maimed and butchered. A private individual behaving this way would be called a sociopath. Give him a fancy title and a nice suit, and he becomes a statesman.

Let us pursue the subversive mission of applying the same moral rules against theft, kidnapping, and murder to our rulers that we apply to everyone else.

(2) Humanize the demonized.

We must encourage all efforts to humanize the populations of countries in the crosshairs of the warmakers. The general public is whipped into a war frenzy without knowing the first thing – or hearing only propaganda – about the people who will die in that war. The establishment’s media won’t tell their story, so it is up to us to use all the resources we as individuals have, especially online, to communicate the most subversive truth of all: that the people on the other side are human beings, too. This will make it marginally more difficult for the warmakers to carry out their Two Minutes’ Hate, and can have the effect of persuading Americans with normal human sympathies to distrust the propaganda that surrounds them.

(3) If we oppose aggression, let us oppose all aggression.

If we believe in the cause of peace, putting a halt to aggressive violence between nations is not enough. We should not want to bring about peace overseas in order that our rulers may turn their guns on peaceful individuals at home. Away with all forms of aggression against peaceful people.

(4) Never use “we” when speaking of the government.

The people and the warmakers are two distinct groups. We must never say “we” when discussing the US government’s foreign policy. For one thing, the warmakers do not care about the opinions of the majority of Americans. It is silly and embarrassing for Americans to speak of “we” when discussing their government’s foreign policy, as if their input were necessary to or desired by those who make war.

But it is also wrong, not to mention mischievous. When people identify themselves so closely with their government, they perceive attacks on their government’s foreign policy as attacks on themselves. It then becomes all the more difficult to reason with them – why, you’re insulting my foreign policy!

Likewise, the use of “we” feeds into war fever. “We” have to get “them.” People root for their governments as they would for a football team. And since we know ourselves to be decent and good, “they” can only be monstrous and evil, and deserving of whatever righteous justice “we” dispense to them.

The antiwar left falls into this error just as often. They appeal to Americans with a catalogue of horrific crimes “we” have committed. But we haven’t committed those crimes. The same sociopaths who victimize Americans themselves every day, and over whom we have no real control, committed those crimes.

(4) War is not “good for the economy.”

A commitment to peace is a wonderful thing and worthy of praise, but it needs to be coupled with an understanding of economics. A well-known US senator recently deplored cuts in military spending because “when you cut military spending you lose jobs.” There is no economic silver lining to war or to preparation for war.

Those who would tell us that war brings prosperity are grossly mistaken, even in the celebrated case of World War II. The particular stimulus that war gives to certain sectors of the economy comes at the expense of civilian needs, and directs resources away from the improvement of the common man’s standard of living.

Ludwig von Mises, the great free-market economist, wrote, that “war prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings. The earthquake means good business for construction workers, and cholera improves the business of physicians, pharmacists, and undertakers; but no one has for that reason yet sought to celebrate earthquakes and cholera as stimulators of the productive forces in the general interest.”

Elsewhere, Mises described the essence of so-called war prosperity: it “enriches some by what it takes from others. It is not rising wealth but a shifting of wealth and income.”

(5) Support the free market? Then oppose war.

Ron Paul has restored the proper association of capitalism with peace and nonintervention. Leninists and other leftists, burdened by a false understanding of economics and the market system, used to claim that capitalism needed war, that alleged “overproduction” of goods forced market societies to go abroad – and often to war – in search for external markets for their excess goods.

This was always economic nonsense. It was political nonsense, too: the free market needs no parasitical institution to grease the skids for international commerce, and the same philosophy that urges nonaggression among individual human beings compels nonaggression between geographical areas.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.24hgold.com/english/news-gold-silver-another-nail-in-the-neocon-coffin.aspx?article=4355092296G10020&redirect=false&contributor=Lew+Rockwell