! http://tinyurl.com/lptgzqv
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de Blasio, Obama , Holder and Sharpton are too knowledgeable not to know when they light a match against our police there are anarchists who seek destruction and want to help fan the flames of chaos because that is how they bring about radical change.
The press and media report on sensationalism because that is what sells but they also have a responsibility to inform and report factually.
That they increasingly do not is because more and more journalism departments have been infiltrated by radical teachers teaching more and more radical students.
Anarchists understand the soft underbelly of any democracy is education. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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I am somewhat of an agnostic when it comes to whether there is a god but I do believe there is a force called nature and science is beginning to reveal more and more information that sustains this belief. (See 2 below.)
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States have only to blame themselves when they become increasingly under the sway and control of Congress. By allowing the federal government to slip its nose under their tent it is only a mater of time before the government is living in the tent. (See 3 below.)
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Two ways to solve the Palestinian and Israeli problem! Neither are likely to happen but they point out the deficiencies in those that have been tried. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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An article that supports my view that the courts will ultimately be the solution to saving America from Obama and his radical supporters. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1) 10 Threats Against Police The Media Didn't Tell You About
The mainstream media has given extensive coverage to the slaying of two unarmed black men by police, the decisions by two grand juries not to indict an officer, and the demonstrations protesting those two events.
But they have given far less attention to the recent threats and physical and verbal attacks against the police.
"Let's face it: There's been, not just in New York but throughout the country, very strong anti-police, anti-criminal-justice system, anti-societal initiatives underway," New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said.
Among the threats and attacks:
1. Police in New York on Monday arrested an 18-year-old in Brooklyn for posting "terrorist threats" against the police on Facebook. Police say Devon Coley posted "73nxt", an apparent reference to the NYPD's 73rd precinct in Brooklyn, along with a cartoon depicting a disembodied arm holding a gun to a police officer's head.
2. The NYPD has been investigating more than 15 threats to officers posted on various social media platforms, a senior official disclosed.
3. The FBI alerted police in Pittsburgh this week about a report they received regarding threats to kill local law enforcement officers.
4. A man in Memphis, Tennessee, has been questioned after allegedly posting threats against the NYPD. "Good job. Kill em all I'm on the way to NY now #shootthepolice 2 more going down tomorrow," his message read.
5. A video clip shows demonstrators in New York City chanting: "What do we want? Dead cops!"
7. Two police lieutenants were physical attacked by a mob during a demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge.
8. A City University professor in New York allegedly tried to toss a heavy metal garbage can onto other officers from the bridge's elevated roadway.
9. An activist in Ferguson, Missouri, where teenager Michael Brown was killed by police, is shown on tape shouting and challenging police officers during a demonstration. Bassem Masri called several cops "pig" and "coward" to their faces, and told one: "Your life is in danger, homie!" To others he shouted "I'm praying for your death."
10. Anti-police sentiment led to tragedy on Dec. 21, when a man in Tarpon Springs, Fla., shot and then ran over Charles Kondek, a 17-year veteran of the police force. Marco Antonio Parilla has been charged with first-degree murder.
1a) Even the NY Times Can’t Save de Blasio
The conceit of the piece is that de Blasio’s personal approach to the crisis that has threatened to tear the city apart while the rank and file of the NYPD are openly displaying their contempt and anger at the mayor is so deft that he is overcoming all obstacles. But even a casual reader can tell that the only people saying such things are close de Blasio allies whose comments are then slavishly taken down and published by the Times.
It is only in such an article at a time in which de Blasio has seemed to be out of control and losing his ability to influence events that you can read some of the following things about the mayor:
To be fair to the paper, part of de Blasio’s problem is conveyed in the article. It notes that while a more able leader would be spending this week reaching out to allies as well as foes in order to try to unify the city, de Blasio isn’t bothering with such conventional tactics:
That’s the sort of foolish, self-deceiving optimism that failed leaders always latch onto while sinking into permanent dysfunction. To the contrary, as the first major crisis of his administration, this is the moment when the public’s impressions of his ability to lead inevitably become more a matter of evaluating performance than of promises or potential. And on that score, he is in big trouble. De Blasio didn’t create this mess by himself. President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and racial hucksters like Al Sharpton deserve a major share of the blame too for weaving the Ferguson and Garner cases into a false narrative about police violence and racism. But de Blasio, who won election by highlighting his criticisms of the successful efforts of the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations to lower crime, was already in a difficult relationship with the police when he joined in the gang tackle of law enforcement personnel after the Ferguson and the Garner cases. His unwillingness to back down and his instinct to attack those who point out what his allies are saying has exacerbated the situation. The notion, as theTimes claims, that all this can “catalyze an ultimately productive conversation about race and the police” is sheer fantasy.
That’s especially true when Sharpton, whose close White House ties (as our Pete Wehner reminded us earlier today) make him a more influential national player than the mayor, chose to defy the mayor’s call for a temporary end to police protests. Put simply, a New York mayor who is simultaneously being brutally attacked by the head of the police union while being snubbed by the city’s leading African-American race baiter is a man marooned on an island and I don’t mean the island of Manhattan.
The Times can be an important ally for any New York mayor. But articles that attempt to put forward an image of the mayor as someone embodying “practiced calm” at such a moment is more likely to generate scorn rather than support. De Blasio may yet recover from this disaster but the insular, foolish man portrayed in this article needs more help than even his media cheering section can provide.
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It’s been an awful week for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The man who was elected in 2013 on a platform of cop bashing has faced the fury of the police and the public after the murder of two members of the force exposed the ugly face of the post-Ferguson/Eric Garner protests. Like most politicians backed into a corner, de Blasio has lashed out at the media while proving unable to either make peace with the cops or to control his leftist allies who continue to conduct anti-police demonstrations. But de Blasio is not completely without friends. He still has the New York Times, which weighed in today with an embarrassing piece of flummery intended to reassure New Yorkers that everything was OK because the mayor was “calm.” If that’s the best they can do, de Blasio may be in even more trouble than his critics thought.
The conceit of the piece is that de Blasio’s personal approach to the crisis that has threatened to tear the city apart while the rank and file of the NYPD are openly displaying their contempt and anger at the mayor is so deft that he is overcoming all obstacles. But even a casual reader can tell that the only people saying such things are close de Blasio allies whose comments are then slavishly taken down and published by the Times.
It is only in such an article at a time in which de Blasio has seemed to be out of control and losing his ability to influence events that you can read some of the following things about the mayor:
He has acted like himself: a confident but mercurial leader whose singular political style has not wavered.Mr. de Blasio, a political professional who promised a warmer, friendlier City Hall, is approaching the fallout from the shooting deaths of two police officers with an operative’s touch, and a healthy dose of the personal.
Or this piece of flummery:
“His response is measured; it’s being respectful of everyone,” said Bertha Lewis, a longtime friend and adviser to the mayor, who, like another ally interviewed for this article, volunteered the phrase “pitch perfect” to describe his approach.
Ms. Lewis said the call to suspend protests and tough talk would give all sides a chance to calm down. “Making that middle-of-the-road statement is a good idea as mayor,” she said.
Are they kidding? On Planet New York Times, the spectacle of an ultra-liberal mayor lashing out at the mainstream press for merely reporting the anti-cop death threats chanted at demonstrations he supports may be “pitch perfect,” but in the rest of the galaxy, that’s the sort of thing that is generally considered tone deaf.
To be fair to the paper, part of de Blasio’s problem is conveyed in the article. It notes that while a more able leader would be spending this week reaching out to allies as well as foes in order to try to unify the city, de Blasio isn’t bothering with such conventional tactics:
And where other politicians are quick to line up allies to reinforce their message, Mr. de Blasio has been relatively insular. The mayor who recently boasted “I never need rescuing” has conferred only with a small group of close advisers since the shooting.
Mr. de Blasio has not spoken with Senator Charles E. Schumer or Representative Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, in whose district the shootings took place. Nor, apart from a brief exchange of texts, has he spoken with Eric L. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president.
Arrogance and insularity are not generally the sort of leadership traits that are associated with success. Even worse is the conviction that comes across from the mayor and his allies that the problem is merely a passing fancy that the public will soon forget about.
That’s the sort of foolish, self-deceiving optimism that failed leaders always latch onto while sinking into permanent dysfunction. To the contrary, as the first major crisis of his administration, this is the moment when the public’s impressions of his ability to lead inevitably become more a matter of evaluating performance than of promises or potential. And on that score, he is in big trouble. De Blasio didn’t create this mess by himself. President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and racial hucksters like Al Sharpton deserve a major share of the blame too for weaving the Ferguson and Garner cases into a false narrative about police violence and racism. But de Blasio, who won election by highlighting his criticisms of the successful efforts of the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations to lower crime, was already in a difficult relationship with the police when he joined in the gang tackle of law enforcement personnel after the Ferguson and the Garner cases. His unwillingness to back down and his instinct to attack those who point out what his allies are saying has exacerbated the situation. The notion, as theTimes claims, that all this can “catalyze an ultimately productive conversation about race and the police” is sheer fantasy.
That’s especially true when Sharpton, whose close White House ties (as our Pete Wehner reminded us earlier today) make him a more influential national player than the mayor, chose to defy the mayor’s call for a temporary end to police protests. Put simply, a New York mayor who is simultaneously being brutally attacked by the head of the police union while being snubbed by the city’s leading African-American race baiter is a man marooned on an island and I don’t mean the island of Manhattan.
The Times can be an important ally for any New York mayor. But articles that attempt to put forward an image of the mayor as someone embodying “practiced calm” at such a moment is more likely to generate scorn rather than support. De Blasio may yet recover from this disaster but the insular, foolish man portrayed in this article needs more help than even his media cheering section can provide.
2) Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God
Here’s the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.
With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing.
What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.
Even SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . . may no longer be tenable.”
As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.
Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.
Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?
There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.
Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?
Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”
The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.
Mr. Metaxas is the author, most recently, of “Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life” ( Dutton Adult, 2014).
Congress finds the authority to enact those programs in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution’s general-welfare clause in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937). More recently, in the court’s 2012 NFIB v. Sebelius decision upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Congress may use federal funds to “induce the States to adopt policies that the Federal Government itself could not impose,” so long as participation by the states is voluntary. To put it another way, Congress is licensed to dabble in areas in which it is forbidden to act, which it does by bribing the states to adopt Congress’s approaches to problems that are the states’ exclusive responsibility.
It is impossible, in this article, to detail all the costs imposed by those programs, but here are some of the most egregious ones: They add layers of federal and state administrative expenses to the cost of the subsidized projects; distort state priorities by offering lucrative grants for purposes of often trivial importance; and undermine accountability because state officials bound by federal regulations can’t be held responsible for the costs and failures of the projects they administer.
Finally, and of prime importance, those programs have subverted the Constitution’s federalism, its division of federal and state responsibilities, that was intended to prevent a concentration of power in a central government that could threaten individual liberties.
The states are free to decline to participate in the programs, but that has proved very hard to do. Money from Washington is still regarded as “free,” and state officials are delighted to accept grants, strings and all, rather than raise the extra money that would be required to pay the full cost of the projects they freely undertake with federal subsidies. What makes declining grants particularly difficult is the fact that if a state does not participate in a program, its share of the money—derived in whole or part from its own taxpayers—will go elsewhere.
There is only one way to resolve the problems that have resulted from Congress’s addiction to grants-in-aid programs, and that is to terminate all of them. They must all go because none is free of the added costs described above. If any exception is made, members of Congress will be encouraged to launch a new wave of grants on the assurance that theirs will be exempt from the problems and costs that have plagued the existing ones, and it would take another generation to prove them wrong.
December 26, 2014 The Supreme Court is poised for a blockbuster year in 2015—and the list of high-profile cases could keep growing.
Already, the Court is set to rule in a case that threatens to wreak havoc on Obamacare. The justices are also considering questions of religious freedom, free speech, and limits on political fundraising.
But Republican governors and social conservatives also have a lot on the line: As soon as the justices return from their holiday break, they'll have to decide whether to take up same-sex marriage once again—a step many legal observers believe the Court will simply have to take, and one that could clear the way for same-sex couples to legally marry in every state.
Obamacare
The justices will hear oral arguments March 4 in a lawsuit that threatens to cripple the health care law, just three years after Chief Justice John Roberts helped save it. This time, the challengers want the Court to invalidate the law's premium subsidies in states that didn't set up their own insurance exchanges. Most states didn't establish their own exchanges, and more than 80 percent of enrollees are getting subsidies—so a win for the challengers here would likely make insurance unaffordable for about 5 million people and could make insurance markets unstable in most of the country.
The fact that the Supreme Court decided to jump in without waiting for that lower-court ruling was seen as a sign that the Court's conservative bloc is itching for another shot at the Affordable Care Act. The big question now is whether Roberts will save the law again.
Same-sex marriage equality
The Court hasn't yet said whether it will act on the latest round of appeals in same-sex marriage cases, but just about everyone wants it to. When the justices meet on Jan. 9 for a private conference to decide which cases they want to consider, challenges to several states' marriage laws will be on the schedule—and even more states have asked the judges to just settle the marriage-equality question once and for all.
The Court had tried to stay away from the issue since its landmark rulings last year that struck down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to same-sex marriage in the states without mandating it.
When a federal Appeals Court upheld same-sex marriage in several states, the justices declined to hear an appeal. But then the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld bans on same-sex marriage in Michigan and Kentucky, as well as state laws in Ohio and Tennessee. So now the Appeals Courts are divided over the constitutionality of state laws banning same-sex marriage, and almost all of the states in question have asked the Supreme Court to settle the issue for good. Given the patchwork of laws from state to state, many legal observers say it'll be hard for the Court to stay on the sidelines this time.
Religious freedom
Religious liberty was the defining issue of 2014's biggest ruling—the Hobby Lobby decision involving Obamacare's contraception mandate—and it's back in a big way this term. The Court has already heard oral arguments in a suit filed by an Arkansas inmate who wants to grow a beard, in accordance with his Muslim faith but in violation of prison rules. During oral arguments, the justices reportedly seemed to be siding with the inmate, questioning whether the prison system could ensure inmates' safety without such strict rules against beards.
The Court has agreed to hear a second, similar case, but hasn't yet scheduled oral arguments. This one concerns a woman who was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch store because the head scarf she wore, as a practicing Muslim, wasn't consistent with the company's "Look Policy." The question in the case is whether a business can discriminate against someone's religion if it didn't know that a religious accommodation was needed.
Freedom of speech
The Court has teed up three potentially significant cases on freedom of speech under the First Amendment—including one that wades into the Roberts Court's favorite free-speech subject: campaign finance law.
The first, in which the justices have already heard oral arguments, concerns social-networking sites and asks what type of messages constitute a "threat." The case concerns a man, Anthony Elonis, who posted violent Facebook messages about an ex-wife, including some that discussed killing her. But the question is whether those messages meet the legal standard for a "threat," which says that a "reasonable person" must conclude that the person making the statement is actually expressing an intent to commit violence.
The second free-speech case the Court has agreed to hear deals with a Florida law that prohibits judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions—they have to set up a fundraising committee, to avoid situations in which a person wins and becomes a judge, then has to try to remain impartial while deciding a case that involves a major donor. The Roberts Court hasn't found many campaign finance laws it likes, and critics fear that a ruling against Florida's fundraising ban would have broader national implications that threaten judges' independence.
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The odds of life existing on another planet grow ever longer. Intelligent design, anyone?
In 1966 Time magazine ran a cover story asking: Is God Dead? Many have accepted the cultural narrative that he’s obsolete—that as science progresses, there is less need for a “God” to explain the universe. Yet it turns out that the rumors of God’s death were premature. More amazing is that the relatively recent case for his existence comes from a surprising place—science itself.
Here’s the story: The same year Time featured the now-famous headline, the astronomer Carl Sagan announced that there were two important criteria for a planet to support life: The right kind of star, and a planet the right distance from that star. Given the roughly octillion—1 followed by 24 zeros—planets in the universe, there should have been about septillion—1 followed by 21 zeros—planets capable of supporting life.
With such spectacular odds, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a large, expensive collection of private and publicly funded projects launched in the 1960s, was sure to turn up something soon. Scientists listened with a vast radio telescopic network for signals that resembled coded intelligence and were not merely random. But as years passed, the silence from the rest of the universe was deafening. Congress defunded SETI in 1993, but the search continues with private funds. As of 2014, researches have discovered precisely bubkis—0 followed by nothing.
What happened? As our knowledge of the universe increased, it became clear that there were far more factors necessary for life than Sagan supposed. His two parameters grew to 10 and then 20 and then 50, and so the number of potentially life-supporting planets decreased accordingly. The number dropped to a few thousand planets and kept on plummeting.
Even SETI proponents acknowledged the problem. Peter Schenkel wrote in a 2006 piece for Skeptical Inquirer magazine: “In light of new findings and insights, it seems appropriate to put excessive euphoria to rest . . . . We should quietly admit that the early estimates . . . may no longer be tenable.”
As factors continued to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn’t be here.
Today there are more than 200 known parameters necessary for a planet to support life—every single one of which must be perfectly met, or the whole thing falls apart. Without a massive planet like Jupiter nearby, whose gravity will draw away asteroids, a thousand times as many would hit Earth’s surface. The odds against life in the universe are simply astonishing.
Yet here we are, not only existing, but talking about existing. What can account for it? Can every one of those many parameters have been perfect by accident? At what point is it fair to admit that science suggests that we cannot be the result of random forces? Doesn’t assuming that an intelligence created these perfect conditions require far less faith than believing that a life-sustaining Earth just happened to beat the inconceivable odds to come into being?
There’s more. The fine-tuning necessary for life to exist on a planet is nothing compared with the fine-tuning required for the universe to exist at all. For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces—gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the “strong” and “weak” nuclear forces—were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter any one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction—by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000—then no stars could have ever formed at all. Feel free to gulp.
Multiply that single parameter by all the other necessary conditions, and the odds against the universe existing are so heart-stoppingly astronomical that the notion that it all “just happened” defies common sense. It would be like tossing a coin and having it come up heads 10 quintillion times in a row. Really?
Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who coined the term “big bang,” said that his atheism was “greatly shaken” at these developments. He later wrote that “a common-sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology . . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”
Theoretical physicist Paul Davies has said that “the appearance of design is overwhelming” and Oxford professor Dr. John Lennox has said “the more we get to know about our universe, the more the hypothesis that there is a Creator . . . gains in credibility as the best explanation of why we are here.”
The greatest miracle of all time, without any close seconds, is the universe. It is the miracle of all miracles, one that ineluctably points with the combined brightness of every star to something—or Someone—beyond itself.
Mr. Metaxas is the author, most recently, of “Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life” ( Dutton Adult, 2014).
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3) How Congress Bribes States to Give Up Power
It’s time to end the more than 1,100 grants-in-aid programs that spend one-sixth of the federal budget.
By
Before the newly elected members of Congress become contaminated by the prevailing congressional culture, they should consider a reform that would achieve a broader range of benefits than any other they might embrace: dismantling the more than 1,100 grants-in-aid programs that spend one-sixth of the federal budget on matters that are the exclusive business of state and local governments.
Congressional freshmen should be warned, however, that if they accept this suggestion they will be fiercely opposed by their senior colleagues who have found the creation and exploitation of lucrative grants-in-aid programs the surest way to scratch their constituents’ backs (think “entitlements”) and ensure their re-election. But that should add zest to the enterprise.
Those programs, which provide funding for Medicaid as well as everything from road and bridge construction to rural housing, job training and fighting childhood obesity—now touch virtually every activity in which state and local governments are engaged. Their direct cost has grown, according to the federal budget, to an estimated $640.8 billion in 2015 from $24.1 billion in 1970.
Those programs, which provide funding for Medicaid as well as everything from road and bridge construction to rural housing, job training and fighting childhood obesity—now touch virtually every activity in which state and local governments are engaged. Their direct cost has grown, according to the federal budget, to an estimated $640.8 billion in 2015 from $24.1 billion in 1970.
Their indirect costs, however, go far beyond those numbers both in terms of dollars wasted and the profound distortions they have brought about in how we govern ourselves. Because the grants come with detailed federal directives, they deprive state and local officials of the flexibility to meet their own responsibilities in the most effective ways, and undermine their citizens’ ability to ensure that their taxes will be used to meet their priorities rather than those of distant federal regulators. The irony is that the money the states and local governments receive from Washington is derived either from federal taxes paid by residents of the states or from the sale of bonds that their children will have to redeem.
Congress finds the authority to enact those programs in the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution’s general-welfare clause in Steward Machine Co. v. Davis (1937). More recently, in the court’s 2012 NFIB v. Sebelius decision upholding the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Congress may use federal funds to “induce the States to adopt policies that the Federal Government itself could not impose,” so long as participation by the states is voluntary. To put it another way, Congress is licensed to dabble in areas in which it is forbidden to act, which it does by bribing the states to adopt Congress’s approaches to problems that are the states’ exclusive responsibility.
It is impossible, in this article, to detail all the costs imposed by those programs, but here are some of the most egregious ones: They add layers of federal and state administrative expenses to the cost of the subsidized projects; distort state priorities by offering lucrative grants for purposes of often trivial importance; and undermine accountability because state officials bound by federal regulations can’t be held responsible for the costs and failures of the projects they administer.
Finally, and of prime importance, those programs have subverted the Constitution’s federalism, its division of federal and state responsibilities, that was intended to prevent a concentration of power in a central government that could threaten individual liberties.
The states are free to decline to participate in the programs, but that has proved very hard to do. Money from Washington is still regarded as “free,” and state officials are delighted to accept grants, strings and all, rather than raise the extra money that would be required to pay the full cost of the projects they freely undertake with federal subsidies. What makes declining grants particularly difficult is the fact that if a state does not participate in a program, its share of the money—derived in whole or part from its own taxpayers—will go elsewhere.
There is only one way to resolve the problems that have resulted from Congress’s addiction to grants-in-aid programs, and that is to terminate all of them. They must all go because none is free of the added costs described above. If any exception is made, members of Congress will be encouraged to launch a new wave of grants on the assurance that theirs will be exempt from the problems and costs that have plagued the existing ones, and it would take another generation to prove them wrong.
Yet because federal transfers now constitute about 30% of the states’ revenues, Congress cannot cut off the funds overnight. Therefore, it should terminate the programs by converting all the grants the states and localities are currently relying on into single, no-strings-attached block grants, one for each state, that would be phased out over six years. That would allow Congress and the states the time to adjust their respective tax codes to accommodate the successive reductions in the federal transfers.
If the newcomers to Congress embrace the reform, the timing could not be more propitious. Recent stories concerning the incompetence, and worse, at the IRS, the Veterans Health Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other federal agencies have undermined the myth that Washington necessarily knows best. Once Americans have learned the true cost of those programs, they will know they have everything to gain from their termination both as citizens and taxpayers.
Mr. Buckley is a retired federal appellate judge and a former U.S. senator. He is the author of “Saving Congress From Itself” (Encounter Books, 2014).
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4) Let's Be Honest about the Mideast
A doctor's job is to properly diagnoses the problem, be honest about it, and then apply the proper treatment. This is true of medicine, of engineering, etc. Yet honesty has fled the debate concerning the Mideast.
The problem in the Mideast is that two peoples make an exclusive religious and national claim on the same piece of property. Both are determined to fight for it, and the more determined of each group refuse to recognize the right of the other to exist. Indeed, both deny the other's present existence: many Israelis say there is no such thing as Palestinians, and Palestinians claim that the Jews are actually Indo-European Khazars, not Semites.
It should be obvious that one of the peoples has to be removed. Yet conservatives never state the obvious. Why?
No other solution will work. Any other plan will be a failure.
So why is every other possible solution entertained but the obvious?
The Palestinians demand full independence, and Israel will not grant independence to such lunatics, so why is the "two-state solution" still being pedaled? The Arabs want to destroy all of Israel, and Israel will offer the Arabs nothing but limited autonomous reservations. Why do we enable the "two-state solution" lie by repeating it? Neither side wants a two-state solution. Their spokesmen, and our State Department, should be dressed down for fraud.
This is not rocket science, but our best and brightest ignore the obvious solutions.
A - Continue the present policy, where roughly 4 million Arabs in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza are under some degree of Israeli military rule – whether fully or by sea blockade, birth registry, or at the border crossings – without any say in the Israeli government that rules over them...while hoping against all historical experience that these violently irascible Arabs learn to gracefully accept such a diminished status vis-à-vis Israelis who actually have citizenship.
B - Enfranchise the Arabs.
C - Intermarriage.
D - Pay the Arabs to leave.
E – Ethnically cleanse the Arabs.
Option A has not worked in 47 years. People do not like to be ruled by those they perceive as foreigners. Yes, the Arabs are nuts, but even so, the situation cannot go on.
Option B: Given that most of the Arabs are Muslims, now in the full blossom of an Islamic revival taking them back to the seventh century, enfranchisement is out of the question. Besides, Jews, given their history, would never consent to be anything less than a clear majority in Israel. We can rule out enfranchisement of Judean, Samarian, and Gazan Arabs, even though conservative Israelis, such as Caroline Glick, have considered the option feasible for Judean and Samarian Arabs. Most Jews will not allow it.
Option C: We might criticize the tendency of both groups to resist intermarriage, and assimilation into a greater whole – à la the Western Hemisphere – but "politics is the art of the possible," said Bismarck, and the Western practice of encouraging intermarriage as a means to peace is not possible in the Mideast, even if it worked in the USA and much of Western Europe. Hostile ethnic groups intermarried in the USA. Frenchmen intermarried Germans in Frederick the Great's Berlin. Celt and Saxon married near the River Clyde. English and French intermarried in Montreal.
But Jew will not intermarry Muslim, nor vice-versa. Indeed, recently in Israel, anti-assimilation groups, such as Lehava, have gotten violent, as the recent arson of a mixed school in Jerusalem shows.
Arabs are even worse, where death is usually the end of those who dare mix outside prescribed limits. So intermarriage is not the solution. No country in the Mideast allows it.
This leaves only paying the Arabs to leave or ethnic cleansing. That's it! Payment or expulsion.
Any honest observer has to come to these two choices. Anything else is dishonest and a waste of time. Discussions by talking heads that do not come down to these options are conversations of either the deluded or liars.
If payment is to work, it must be substantial enough to convince most Arabs to leave, and convince third-party governments to take them in. Lowballing will not work.
[MK] Feiglin said that Israel should offer each Palestinian Authority Arab $500,000 to leave Israel. "The country pays 10% of its gross national product every year to maintain the 'two-state solution' and the Oslo Accords," Feiglin said, including money for security fences and checkpoints, Iron Dome missile defense systems and guards whom he said are posted "at every café." Feiglin said the same money could be used to pay every PA Arab half a million dollars to leave Israel.
Whenever I have suggested paying the Arabs to leave, I have gotten mercilessly criticized for being Arabophilic, but the fact is that many right-wing Israelis have come to the same conclusion, and ended up with roughly the same numbers as my own independent estimate of $200 billion overall.
For those who cannot stand the thought of paying the Arabs to leave, and prefer forcibly "returning" the Arabs to Jordan, one should know that many of these Arabs have long historical roots in Jaffa, Caesarea, Haifa, with no historical connection to Jordan. Nor will Jordan accept them anymore. "Let them return to Jordan" is a wonderfully nice slogan but often historically inaccurate. However much one might want to free Israel of the Palestinian scourge, historic fictions will not help. Most of these Palestinians did not come from Jordan. Jordan temporarily granted some of them citizenship from 1948-1988, but that was withdrawn.
In Jordan, not all passports grant the same privileges. Following the 1988 judicial and administrative disengagement from the occupied territories, new regulations were enacted that rendered the passports of Palestinians living in the West Bank temporary [4]. In practical terms, this designation meant that the new temporary passports were now only valid as a travel document–it no longer conferred citizenship and it no longer had a national number.
If payment is out of the question, then be honest, and recommend that what is preferred is ethnic cleansing. Do not fudge and call it a population transfer – which is, after all, just ethnic cleansing by both sides. Be honest! You want them out, and you do not want to pay for it.
Yes, Jews were expelled in the late '40s and '50s from Arab countries – most, not all, after the flight/expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Israel. That expulsion of Jews from Araby was also ethnic cleansing and quite despicable. If payback is what you want, be honest! Admit you want ethnic cleansing or "counter-ethnic-cleansing" of the Arabs now. Just know that the Arabs you want to expel now from Judea and Samaria were not responsible for the expulsion of those Jews. Judean and Samaria Arabs had no control over Morocco, Libya, etc.
I am not saying ethnic cleansing of the Arabs is indefensible. It may come down to that. I just ask that if this is your preferred option, be honest about your designs and reasons – and spare us the antiseptic terminologies like "transfer" or "voluntary flight." When Joshua and the tribes of Israel entered the Promised Land, the Canaanites did not leave voluntarily. Joshua drove them out. If this is your preferred solution, be as honest as the Bible was.
Ethnic cleansing will require a war. The problem is that Egypt and Jordan are at peace with Israel. Presently, Sisi's Egypt is a better ally of Israel than Obama's America. So a war will not be easily forthcoming. While the solution of forced removal – let's be honest, and call it what it is: ethnic cleansing – may appeal to many, it will be hard to engineer.A new year is coming. Lies will not solve the Mideast issue. Keeping people under military rule, however necessary, will only breed more violence. Enfranchisement is not an option. The Jews of Israel will not concede to it. Intermarriage over time is not an option. The mullahs and the rabbis will not agree to it.
So if you are honest, only paying Palestinians to leave and ethnically cleansing the Palestinians are the real options.
Make a resolution this year to be honest, at least about the Mideast. Choose which option you prefer, call it by its right name, admit it, and stick to it.Mike Konrad is an American who writes on various topics.
4a) Op-Ed: Europe is Gone
To Europe, the noble Palestinians – fomenters of worldwide terrorism, intifadas and recurring wars – are worthy of diplomatic recognition, media support, financial aid and moral justification. This is Europe's revenge on the Jews for surviving.
What can one say about Europe? I imagine that if one wants to be bitterly truthful then one could easily say that Hitler has in effect triumphed. He branded the Jews as the root of all troubles and proclaimed that the “final” and only solution to the “Jewish problem” was to eradicate all Jews from the face of the earth.And as we all know, he followed through on his genocidal program. A great deal of Europe, its leaders, intellectuals and common folk, willfully and almost gleefully cooperated in this genocide. Many did so actively while many more Europeans did so passively.Once the horrors of the Holocaust were revealed after the war ended, this irrational and pathological hatred of the Jews went underground. After all, it was too shameful to admit that the continent that prided itself on the advancement of civilization could be guilty of such organized, government-sponsored inhumanity and cruelty. So, most Europeans shielded themselves from any true feelings of guilt by simply stating that they were ignorant as to what was occurring.The Vatican and other Christian churches aided many Nazis and other war criminals in escaping from Europe and settling rather comfortably in other continents, notably South America. As penance for their atrocious behavior, many European countries, though not all, voted for the establishment of the state of Israel and granted the nascent nation diplomatic and sometimes even economic recognition and help.And there the matter seemed to rest during the decade of the 1950s. But the state of Israel, always being the burr under the world’s saddle, would not let the matter rest then. The wound was too deep and raw and the world would not be allowed to so easily forget what had happened.
So, Israel captured Adolf Eichmann and placed him on trial for his crimes against the Jewish people and humanity. The trial, which lasted almost a year, revealed in a stark and graphic way what had happened to the Jewish people on European soil from 1939 to 1945. Thus it was not only Eichmann and the Nazis that were the defendants in that most bruising and bitter trial, but in a very real sense, Europe itself was on trial. And when![]()
To use a Christian phrase, Europe is sorely in need of redemption.![]()
Eichmann was justifiably found guilty and executed for his crimes, subliminally Europe was also judged to be guilty and complicit in the horror of the Holocaust.
Europe has never forgiven Israel for that trial and verdict. It is well aware that it is guilty but can never own up to this guilt. Therefore, in line with its time-honored obsession with the Jewish people and its innate necessity to scapegoat Jews for all of Europe's problems, Europe has turned its enmity in an unremitting fashion against the Jewish state.Israel should be pilloried and boycotted, delegitimized and isolated, while the noble Palestinians – fomenters of worldwide terrorism, intifadas and recurring wars – are worthy of diplomatic recognition, media support, financial aid and moral justification. This is Europe's revenge against the Jews for surviving the Holocaust and thereby instilling the unease and guilt that Europe feels towards Jews, Judaism and the Jewish state.
To use a Christian phrase, Europe is sorely in need of redemption. Catholic countries such as Ireland, Portugal and Spain have not digested the lessons of history vis-à-vis the relationship of the Church and the Jews over the centuries. The liberal Left refuses to deal with its history of oppression and anti-Semitism that Marxism, the Soviet Union and the Left generally has inflicted on European and world Jewry. Thus it again bans circumcision and kosher slaughter, all in the name of some lofty ideals of infant and animal rights.All of this naturally occurs in the background of rampant child abuse and slaughter of humans, the repression of women, the elimination of minorities and the other pernicious facets of intolerant social norms, which characterize Palestinian and Islamic society. Perfidious and hypocritical as it is, Europe nonetheless claims the high moral ground for itself, sneering condescendingly at the United States and feels justly entitled to be the moral judge over the state of Israel.Europe regrets not so much the Holocaust itself, but that the Jews survived it and because of it were allowed to create a nation state for themselves. Therefore it will allow for the creation of Holocaust memorials and museums but objects that somehow the state of Israel be included in the Jewish story that it depicts.Hamas is no longer a terrorist organization as far as Europe is concerned, but Israel should be hauled before the International Court of Justice at The Hague.Even George Orwell would be astounded to see how skewed the vision and policies of Europe are today. Only time will tell if Europe is ever able to right its perverse attitude towards Jews and Israel. History teaches us that it will be doomed somehow if it does not do so.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------5) Why Liberals Should Fear the Supreme Court in 2015
Obamacare, religious freedom, and same-sex marriage equality are all on the judicial agenda.
December 26, 2014 The Supreme Court is poised for a blockbuster year in 2015—and the list of high-profile cases could keep growing.
Already, the Court is set to rule in a case that threatens to wreak havoc on Obamacare. The justices are also considering questions of religious freedom, free speech, and limits on political fundraising.
That mix of cases poses big risks for liberals, who were caught off guard by the Court's enthusiasm for another high-stakes Obamacare battle. And under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court has steadily chipped away at campaign-finance limits.
But Republican governors and social conservatives also have a lot on the line: As soon as the justices return from their holiday break, they'll have to decide whether to take up same-sex marriage once again—a step many legal observers believe the Court will simply have to take, and one that could clear the way for same-sex couples to legally marry in every state.
Here are the highest-profile issues the Court will likely tackle just in the first six months of 2015, before the current term ends around the end of June.
Obamacare
The justices will hear oral arguments March 4 in a lawsuit that threatens to cripple the health care law, just three years after Chief Justice John Roberts helped save it. This time, the challengers want the Court to invalidate the law's premium subsidies in states that didn't set up their own insurance exchanges. Most states didn't establish their own exchanges, and more than 80 percent of enrollees are getting subsidies—so a win for the challengers here would likely make insurance unaffordable for about 5 million people and could make insurance markets unstable in most of the country.
Obamacare's supporters are nervous about this case, King v. Burwell, not only because of its implications, but because of the way the Supreme Court decided to hear it. The justices took up the Obamacare case much earlier than many observers had expected, opting not to wait for a lower-court ruling that likely would have strengthened the Obama administration's hand.
The fact that the Supreme Court decided to jump in without waiting for that lower-court ruling was seen as a sign that the Court's conservative bloc is itching for another shot at the Affordable Care Act. The big question now is whether Roberts will save the law again.
Same-sex marriage equality
The Court hasn't yet said whether it will act on the latest round of appeals in same-sex marriage cases, but just about everyone wants it to. When the justices meet on Jan. 9 for a private conference to decide which cases they want to consider, challenges to several states' marriage laws will be on the schedule—and even more states have asked the judges to just settle the marriage-equality question once and for all.
The Court had tried to stay away from the issue since its landmark rulings last year that struck down a key part of the Defense of Marriage Act and opened the door to same-sex marriage in the states without mandating it.
When a federal Appeals Court upheld same-sex marriage in several states, the justices declined to hear an appeal. But then the Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld bans on same-sex marriage in Michigan and Kentucky, as well as state laws in Ohio and Tennessee. So now the Appeals Courts are divided over the constitutionality of state laws banning same-sex marriage, and almost all of the states in question have asked the Supreme Court to settle the issue for good. Given the patchwork of laws from state to state, many legal observers say it'll be hard for the Court to stay on the sidelines this time.
Religious freedom
Religious liberty was the defining issue of 2014's biggest ruling—the Hobby Lobby decision involving Obamacare's contraception mandate—and it's back in a big way this term. The Court has already heard oral arguments in a suit filed by an Arkansas inmate who wants to grow a beard, in accordance with his Muslim faith but in violation of prison rules. During oral arguments, the justices reportedly seemed to be siding with the inmate, questioning whether the prison system could ensure inmates' safety without such strict rules against beards.
The Court has agreed to hear a second, similar case, but hasn't yet scheduled oral arguments. This one concerns a woman who was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch store because the head scarf she wore, as a practicing Muslim, wasn't consistent with the company's "Look Policy." The question in the case is whether a business can discriminate against someone's religion if it didn't know that a religious accommodation was needed.
Freedom of speech
The Court has teed up three potentially significant cases on freedom of speech under the First Amendment—including one that wades into the Roberts Court's favorite free-speech subject: campaign finance law.
The first, in which the justices have already heard oral arguments, concerns social-networking sites and asks what type of messages constitute a "threat." The case concerns a man, Anthony Elonis, who posted violent Facebook messages about an ex-wife, including some that discussed killing her. But the question is whether those messages meet the legal standard for a "threat," which says that a "reasonable person" must conclude that the person making the statement is actually expressing an intent to commit violence.
The second free-speech case the Court has agreed to hear deals with a Florida law that prohibits judicial candidates from personally soliciting campaign contributions—they have to set up a fundraising committee, to avoid situations in which a person wins and becomes a judge, then has to try to remain impartial while deciding a case that involves a major donor. The Roberts Court hasn't found many campaign finance laws it likes, and critics fear that a ruling against Florida's fundraising ban would have broader national implications that threaten judges' independence.
Finally, there's the free-speech issue that never dies: the Confederate flag. Officials in Texas rejected a proposed license-plate design from a group called Sons of Confederate Veterans, which, unsurprisingly, included the Confederate flag. The state said the license plate would conjure up associations with "expressions of hate," but a lower court said the design should have been allowed. Now the Supreme Court will have to decide who's right.
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