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There are many reasons that can bring down a powerful democratic government and nation.
Citizens are quite capable of losing faith and they lose faith because:
a) The government can no longer protect them.
b) The political and court system have become so corrupt they no longer serve the general welfare.
c) The government enters a sustained period of political gridlock and contentiousness and this results in extreme frustration leading to revolt.
d) The populace becomes so politically disinterested, incapable of rational thinking and/or misinformed the vacuum created leads to voter anarchy and the void created is filled by dangerous chaos seeking elements hoping to benefit for a variety of nefarious reasons.
e) The caliber of candidates seeking office are of such sustained and poor quality, so incompetent or tyrannical the public becomes disgusted and takes matters into their own hands.
f) Another matter that can bring down a united nation is when that nation fractures its common language. English must remain America's common language and other languages can certainly be spoken but English has to remain our sole language.
How did we come to where we are? Again not a complete list but those I consider the most evident are:.
a) Exhaustion from paying the price of leading the world and an unwillingness to pay for the cost along the way makes us susceptible to the siren song of retreat.
b) An electorate more and more polarized, dependent upon government for their very existence and an uniformed voter incapable of reasoning. A people to remain free must be capable of and willing to sacrifice.
c) Failure of the fourth estate to be responsible and inform in an unbiased manner.
d) Media and information technology has weakened institutions we previously relied upon and mounting pressure to remain meaningful has caused them to default and cheapen their offerings in order to remain competitive.
e) Gerrymandering and money has contributed to creating far too many uncontested safe seats. Thus, no fresh thinking, addressing current circumstances, is allowed to enter the halls of Congress.
f) Political parties become ingrained and their members become ossified and more interested in serving narrow interests than placing the nation's broader interests first.
g) The character of the nation's citizenry deteriorates leading to bitterness, feelings of disenfranchisement resulting in societal splintering and schisms.
Ben Franklin is alleged to have said : 'we have a Republic if we can keep it.'
Our Republic form of government is fragile and rests upon several critical pillars - an informed and participating citizenry, a strong family unit, an educated populace and citizens who place their faith in a higher being or entity and a willingness to adhere to the rule of law.
Once again we are moving in an unhealthy direction regarding these pillars. Fissures and cracks are developing.
The '60's began a period of sharp divergence resulting in revolt against authority, disrespect for the very fabric that has bound us, a turn toward nihilism and self indulgence.
I also believe the Civil Rights struggle, though wholly overdue, resulted in consequences not all favorable.
Another long overdue unresolved issue was Women's Rights. That said, after it was addressed it spawned a host of unintended consequences which have torn at the fabric of our society that remain unresolved to this day.
The rise of single issue concerns, based on intellectually flawed science and PC'ism, also comes in for their share of shaking our faith in ourselves, our leaders and our government.
Finally, the expansion , the growth and intrusion of government has eroded our feelings of self worth, our self reliance and our very sanctity let alone our freedoms.
I am no psychiatrist, but if we could lay our nation on a couch and subject it to analysis I believe these are some of the root causes that changed the direction of our nation, caused us to lose our moorings and has pointed us towards rocky and dangerous shoals.
I have no crystal ball where America is heading but my concerns are heightened daily because I believe Obama is the most radical lying president we ever elected. His view of what America should be is not mine. His many appointments border on pathetic and his respect for the rightful role of the opposition and Constitutional restraints is beyond partisanship and downright dangerous.
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Israel's Knesseth passes some major controversial legislation. (See 1 below.)
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Another unconstitutional political ploy by 'President Stealth.'
If it helps reduce voter angst at the polls this November 'what difference does it make' if Obama shreds the constitution? (See 2 below.)
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These are the animals Obama wants Israel to lie down with. (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)Three Controversial Laws Passed In Israel's Knesset
Jewish Federations of North America's Israel office reports that the Knesset passed three highly controversial and potentially historic laws this week:
1) the "Equal Service Bill" to draft the ultra-Orthodox into military and national service;
2) major electoral reforms;
3) a new Basic Law requiring a national referendum for any land withdrawal from areas under Israeli sovereignty.
The highly-anticipated bills were passed as the 19th Knesset's second session draws to a close next week before the Passover recess. Each bill was championed by a different coalition faction, and it is unlikely that the bills would have passed individually without the inter-coalition deals and enforcement of strict voting discipline. To overcome internal coalition tensions, the coalition faction leaders decided to use unusual parliamentary measures to vote for the three bills in rapid succession with limited time for debate. In protest of the coalition's tactics, the opposition parties including the Labor, Meretz, ultra-Orthodox and Arab parties displayed an uncommon unified front by boycotting the Knesset debate and votes. In fact, there are signs of a strengthening alliance between Labor, Meretz and the ultra-Orthodox parties.
The following is a brief overview of each of the new laws:
The "Equal Service Bill"
The most controversial bill, the amendment to Israel's National Security Service Law known as "The Equal Service Bill," aims to end the special exemption from military service for ultra-Orthodox men and encourage the entrance of ultra-Orthodox men into the workforce.
Burning for nearly two decades, the issue of the draft exemption came to a head in 2012 when the Supreme Court declared that extending the Tal Law, which codified the ultra-Orthodox exemption, unconstitutional. The issue of "equal sharing of the burden" has been championed primarily by the Yesh Atid party since the 2012-2013 election campaign. A special committee headed by MK Ayelet Shaked worked for over a year amidst intense discussion and public and legal pressure to pass a bill.
The new law includes multiple provisions that will be enacted over several time periods. Following enactment, all ultra-Orthodox men above the age of 22 will receive a permanent exemption from national service. Previously, men had to be full-time students in order to receive an exemption. The law's proponents expect that the bill will encourage thousands of ultra-Orthodox men to legally enter the work force.
Over the next three years, the Minister of Defense will continue to exempt full-time yeshiva students without restriction. During this three-year period, the ultra-Orthodox community must fulfill conscription quotas set by the Government (3,300 draftees next year).
Beginning in 2017, the Minister of Defense may issue service deferments on the condition that the ultra-Orthodox community fulfills conscription targets (it must exceed 5,000 draftees in 2017). If the targets are not met, the Minister may grant only 1,800 deferments for 'elite students' and all other ultra-Orthodox young men will be expected to enlist by the age of 21 or face imprisonment, like all other Israeli men who refuse service. The use of so-called criminal sanctions has been a sticking point in the legislation, but the Yesh Atid party insisted on their inclusion.
The law has been criticized intensely from across the political and social spectrum. Many have noted that this is the first time that the State of Israel will criminalize a life focused on Torah study. Proponents of encouraging the ultra-Orthodox draft also claim that the law holds many problematic provisions or omissions. As the Government will determine the conscription targets annually, the number of ultra-Orthodox enlistees may not actually change over time. Moreover, critics say that criminal sanctions are essentially unenforceable. Beyond the logistical and social difficulty associated with arresting and imprisoning thousands of young men annually, the bill does not provide criteria for the determination of the 1,800 'elite students' who will receive exemptions from the Minister of Defense. There is currently no definition of who is considered an 'elite student' and who is subject to conscription and thus criminal penalties. Additionally, the law will only be implemented in full in 2017, which follows the next election cycle, which is due in 2017 but is likely to be held earlier. This means that a new Knesset can overturn any and all of the bill's provisions before the measures are enacted. Many have expressed concern that the inclusion of criminal provisions and the vitriol surrounding the debate have only served to deepen fissures within Israeli society.
Electoral and Governance Reform Laws
The Knesset passed historic reforms to Israel's electoral system this week that will have a significant impact on the future composition of the Knesset and Government.
For decades, Israelis have explored ways to improve government stability and reform Israel's electoral system. However, few parties put controversial and revolutionary reforms at the top of their legislative agendas until the Yisrael Beiteinu and Yesh Atid parties made it a central part of their electoral promises.
The electoral threshold will increase from 2% to 3.25%, meaning that parties must receive at least 3.25% of total votes in order to enter the Knesset. Critics hold that the new threshold may force the small Arab parties to unite or lose their representation in the Knesset. Governments will be limited to 18 ministers (excluding the Prime Minister) and 4 deputy ministers. The law eliminates the position of minister without portfolio. No-confidence votes will be dramatically reduced. Currently, parties may present no-confidence motions almost without limit and on a weekly basis. In the new law, the opposition may only present a no-confidence measure by offering an alternative government. Instead of new elections, the newly proposed government will take over until the next election cycle.
While many political scientists and politicians have argued for increasing the electoral threshold for many years, the law has been criticized for the dramatic jump from 2% to 3.25% which provides little time for the small parties to adjust to the new electoral rules.
For more, please see:
Referendum Basic Law
Habayit Hayehudi and the right-wing factions of Likud pushed for upgrading the status of the Referendum Law passed in 2010 to a Basic Law with constitutional standing. The law requires a national referendum to approve any withdrawal from territory under Israeli sovereignty. This law applies to areas annexed by Israel such as Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, but does not apply to territorial withdrawals from the West Bank. The law passed in 2010 was challenged in the High Court of Justice. Basic Laws hold constitutional standing and are thus more difficult to challenge in the High Court. This is the first new Basic Law passed in Israel in 22 years.
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2) Psst! Obamacare Mandate Delayed Again — Quietly
The administration has quietly announced that it was delaying through October 2016 the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate for millions of Americans who have lost their healthcare coverage.
The latest change was buried in an announcement that Americans would be able to keep health plans that do not meet Obamacare standards for another two years, Fox News reports.
Political consultant Dick Morris says the effect of this announcement with all the other Obamacare delays means that the act has now effectively been repealed.
"When you take the employer mandate that's been postponed, the small-business mandate that's been postponed, and the individual mandate that now has been given all kinds of escape clauses," he said, "you're essentially saying the boss doesn't have to provide it and you don't have to buy it. So, what's left?" he said on Newsmax TV's America's Forum.
"You don't have to buy insurance because there are all these escapes and your boss doesn't have to buy insurance if he is a small, medium or large business," he said. "This is to say any employer. And essentially now, all of it is postponed or overridden. So, it's really a [de facto] repeal."
Bradley Blakeman, former presidential assistant under George W. Bush, told Newsmax that Obama was attempting to "rig" November's congressional elections with the move.
"He’s unilaterally amending a law in order to save Democrats in the fall," said Blakeman. "You expect John Gotti to operate this way, not the president of the United States. It’s thuggery.
"He’s afraid, obviously he can’t go to Congress and get the law amended, and he has to save as many seats as he can, so he unilaterally amends the law. And he does so in a way that’s secretive. And he doesn’t make an announcement from the East room. He gets out his pen, and he does it in the dark of night.”
The seven-page technical bulletin, published with the announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services, contains a paragraph and footnote that refer to yet another rule in another bulletin that grants a "hardship exemption" to those whose policies were canceled, through October 2016.
News of the latest change was first reported Wednesday in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal. The bulletin that led to the editorial was published March 5.
In other words, the quietly announced change will not, until October 2016, penalize any Americans who lost their health insurance when the Obamacare individual mandate took effect last year but still have not gotten new coverage.
Since the last delay of the individual mandate in December, Americans have been told that they had to purchase insurance by March 31 to avoid being fined by the Internal Revenue Service.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee attacked the latest Obamacare delay, charging on Wednesday that the White House is working to "bury its failures when nobody is watching."
"With less than three weeks remaining before the end of the healthcare law's first open enrollment period, the Obama administration continues to quietly abandon many of the law's core elements," the legislators said in a blog post on the committee's website.
"Throughout the law’s troubled implementation, the administration made unilateral change after unilateral change as it attempted to hide some of the law’s most harmful and controversial effects," the post said. "Many of these announcements have come late on Friday afternoon or before holidays, often will little fanfare."
But an HHS official told Fox that "we want consumers to have as many options as possible" and that the "transitional policy" will allow them to keep the coverage they have "if they would like to do so."
Later the agency said, “This is a common-sense clarification of the law that we made clear last December. For the limited number of consumers whose plans have been cancelled and are seeking coverage, this is one more option."
But this latest delay may not be so simple, Fox reports.
State insurance commissioners and insurance companies must decide whether to offer plans that have already been canceled — and many have objected to the latest extension.
Also, many Americans have since been forced to find new policies, often facing higher premiums and deductibles or reduced coverage.
"There's no question we got off to a really bad start, and that was on us," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Wednesday, according to Fox. "And a lot of effort was put into making sure that the website and the problems with it were fixed.
"Once that happened, we've seen the American people's interest in the product not waver at all, despite all of the obstacles to obtaining it that were put in front of them, and, you know, we've seen a consistent growth in enrollments."
About 4.2 million people have signed up through the Obamacare exchanges, Carney said, a number that continues to lag behind projections.
Just last month, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius retreated on comments that she had made in 2013 that the administration had a 7 million enrollment target for Obamacare
Another Obamacare delay has taken effect, although you may not have heard.
The administration has quietly announced that it was delaying through October 2016 the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate for millions of Americans who have lost their healthcare coverage.
The latest change was buried in an announcement that Americans would be able to keep health plans that do not meet Obamacare standards for another two years, Fox News reports.
Political consultant Dick Morris says the effect of this announcement with all the other Obamacare delays means that the act has now effectively been repealed.
"When you take the employer mandate that's been postponed, the small-business mandate that's been postponed, and the individual mandate that now has been given all kinds of escape clauses," he said, "you're essentially saying the boss doesn't have to provide it and you don't have to buy it. So, what's left?" he said on Newsmax TV's America's Forum.
"You don't have to buy insurance because there are all these escapes and your boss doesn't have to buy insurance if he is a small, medium or large business," he said. "This is to say any employer. And essentially now, all of it is postponed or overridden. So, it's really a [de facto] repeal."
Bradley Blakeman, former presidential assistant under George W. Bush, told Newsmax that Obama was attempting to "rig" November's congressional elections with the move.
"He’s unilaterally amending a law in order to save Democrats in the fall," said Blakeman. "You expect John Gotti to operate this way, not the president of the United States. It’s thuggery.
"He’s afraid, obviously he can’t go to Congress and get the law amended, and he has to save as many seats as he can, so he unilaterally amends the law. And he does so in a way that’s secretive. And he doesn’t make an announcement from the East room. He gets out his pen, and he does it in the dark of night.”
The seven-page technical bulletin, published with the announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services, contains a paragraph and footnote that refer to yet another rule in another bulletin that grants a "hardship exemption" to those whose policies were canceled, through October 2016.
News of the latest change was first reported Wednesday in an editorial in The Wall Street Journal. The bulletin that led to the editorial was published March 5.
In other words, the quietly announced change will not, until October 2016, penalize any Americans who lost their health insurance when the Obamacare individual mandate took effect last year but still have not gotten new coverage.
Since the last delay of the individual mandate in December, Americans have been told that they had to purchase insurance by March 31 to avoid being fined by the Internal Revenue Service.
Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee attacked the latest Obamacare delay, charging on Wednesday that the White House is working to "bury its failures when nobody is watching."
"With less than three weeks remaining before the end of the healthcare law's first open enrollment period, the Obama administration continues to quietly abandon many of the law's core elements," the legislators said in a blog post on the committee's website.
"Throughout the law’s troubled implementation, the administration made unilateral change after unilateral change as it attempted to hide some of the law’s most harmful and controversial effects," the post said. "Many of these announcements have come late on Friday afternoon or before holidays, often will little fanfare."
But an HHS official told Fox that "we want consumers to have as many options as possible" and that the "transitional policy" will allow them to keep the coverage they have "if they would like to do so."
Later the agency said, “This is a common-sense clarification of the law that we made clear last December. For the limited number of consumers whose plans have been cancelled and are seeking coverage, this is one more option."
But this latest delay may not be so simple, Fox reports.
State insurance commissioners and insurance companies must decide whether to offer plans that have already been canceled — and many have objected to the latest extension.
Also, many Americans have since been forced to find new policies, often facing higher premiums and deductibles or reduced coverage.
"There's no question we got off to a really bad start, and that was on us," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Wednesday, according to Fox. "And a lot of effort was put into making sure that the website and the problems with it were fixed.
"Once that happened, we've seen the American people's interest in the product not waver at all, despite all of the obstacles to obtaining it that were put in front of them, and, you know, we've seen a consistent growth in enrollments."
About 4.2 million people have signed up through the Obamacare exchanges, Carney said, a number that continues to lag behind projections.
Just last month, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius retreated on comments that she had made in 2013 that the administration had a 7 million enrollment target for Obamacare
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3)Allah will gather Israelis
Click to see more statements from Abbas Zaki.
3)Allah will gather Israelis
so Palestinians can kill them,
says senior Palestinian official Abbas Zaki
by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik
Senior Palestinian official Abbas Zaki said in an interview broadcast yesterday on official PA TV that Israelis "have no belief, no principles" and that they "are an advanced instrument of evil." Therefore, "Allah will gather them so that we can kill them," he explained:
"These Israelis have no belief, no principles. They are an advanced instrument of evil. They say, the Holocaust, and so on - fine, why are they doing this to us? Therefore, I believe that Allah, will gather them so we can kill them. I am informing the murderer of his death."
[Official PA TV, March 12, 2014]
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| Zaki sitting in place of honor one seat from Mahmoud Abbas at Fatah event in 2011 |
Zaki's public anticipation of the extermination of the Israelis is significant because, asPalestinian Media Watch has reported, he is a close associate of Mahmoud Abbas. He was sent to Syria as Mahmoud Abbas' personal representative in October 2013, and he speaks at public events representing Fatah.
The following is a longer excerpt of the interview with Zaki:
PA TV host: On the issue discussed in the media, that Netanyahu failed in his attempt to stir up the media around the so-called arms ship (Iranian shipment of arms to Gaza intercepted by Israel), and so he turned to the option of bloodshed, which explains the number of Martyrs (3 Islamic Jihad terrorists) who fell in 24 hours. In other words, he failed to draw the world's attention, and so resorted to the Israeli occupation's traditional method - killing Palestinians in order to provoke a hurried Palestinian reaction. How do you see this?
Member of Fatah Central Committee Abbas Zaki: Netanyahu went and provoked an uproar, like [when] he drew a nuclear bomb [and said] this is what Iran wants. He failed in the Iranian issue, and tried to improve his situation with the Palestinian issue... These Israelis have no belief, no principles. They are an advanced instrument of evil. They say, the Holocaust, and so on - fine, why are they doing this to us? Therefore, I believe that Allah, will gather them so we can kill them. I am informing the murderer of his death.
[Official PA TV, March 12, 2014]
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